Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  He used a calm tone to deliver his response: “Knowledge is arrogance,” he said, each word dripping with bile. “It is for wanting to devour knowledge that we were cast out of paradise.”

  And, referring to the doctor’s courtyard of orange trees, he dismissed it outright: “It is an eccentricity.”

  As if he hadn’t been clear enough, he added: “It is absurd for an entire family to study. A woman’s education should be limited to manual labors and catechism.”

  Diego Núñez da Silva listened to him in silence. He understood the dangers of offending the authority of a familiar. After hearing each sentence, he lowered his eyes and even bent his head. The sullen priest was small and had a hurtful gaze. The doctor, in contrast, was tall and tender eyed. He had to cede to the priest’s power, but not so much as to shut down his academy. He restrained himself to saying that he would reflect on these sensible words. He neither dismissed Brother Isidro, nor did he limit the hours of his classes or exclude women.

  Brother Antonio Luque was still bothered. He summoned Brother Isidro Miranda to come and “inform” him about the “ridiculous academy.” He asked a half-dozen questions, which Brother Isidro answered, his eyes bulging more than ever. Afterward, Luque reproached him: “What kind of notion was it to teach the four basics?” His gaze was brutal. “Those are subjects for qualified institutions, not for Ibatín.”

  Brother Isidro pressed the trembling cross that hung at his chest, not daring to reply.

  “To teach such splendid subjects to miserable beings! It’s like watering sand!” Luque rose and began to pace the dim sacristy. “What’s more, you have committed an unforgivable omission: you overlooked theology, the queen of the sciences. If you and that highly suspicious doctor want to cultivate souls, teach them, at the very least, the rudiments of theology. The rudiments!”

  The following afternoon, Brother Isidro opened a tattered notebook and taught his first theology class. At the end of the lesson, young Diego confessed that he wanted to learn Latin.

  “Latin?”

  “To understand Mass,” he said in his own defense.

  “You don’t need to understand Mass,” the priest explained. “It’s enough to attend, listen, be moved, and receive communion.”

  “I want to learn that, too!” Francisco raised his little hand.

  “‘That’ is called ‘Latin,’” Brother Isidro said.

  “Yes, Latin.”

  “You’re not old enough.”

  “Why not?”

  The priest approached the boy and pressed his shoulders. “Not everything can be known.”

  He let go of the boy, walked slowly around his students, and murmured, as if to the boy’s father, “Knowledge, my friend, is not always power.”

  A couple of weeks later, he caved to their demands and began teaching Latin. Francisquito and his brother Diego studied it as if it were a game. They chanted declensions while jumping rope and playing hopscotch. When Brother Antonio Luque learned of this development, he let out a burst of astonishment. But suspicions still gnawed at his spirit.

  Francisco has turned thirty-five years old. He uses the last names of his mother (Maldonado) and his father (da Silva). A few months ago he relocated to Concepción, in southern Chile, to avoid the lashings of the Holy Office. But he knows that they will reach him; his escape only makes their work more difficult, and in truth, he doesn’t want to keep living like a fugitive: he’s been one long enough already, just as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were.

  He sleeps lightly, restlessly. He senses that it will happen one of these nights. He toys with alternative plans, but dismisses them as naïve. The two of them—he and the Inquisition—will have to face each other, fatally.

  At last he hears noise around the house. His premonition becomes reality. He imagines the soldiers, with their implacable order for his arrest. He has arrived at the moment that will turn his life upside down. He gets out of bed in silence. He must not frighten his sleeping wife and small daughter. He dresses in the dark. Those henchmen usually act brutally, and he plans to surprise them with his calm bearing. Even though his heart has started beating in his throat.

  3

  Ibatín nestled at the foot of a mountain. The clouds lingered to water its slopes, transforming the otherwise arid land into a fantastic jungle. To arrive at this oasis, Don Diego had had to travel the same roads that, centuries before, the Incas had opened for the first time, and that the conquistadores had later worn down in small, suicidal armies inspired by delusions of a marvelous city built with silver walls and roofs of gold. Although they did not find such a city, they founded others, among them Ibatín and San Miguel de Tucumán, beside a river that wound sonorously down the Ravine of the Portuguese. They christened it Río del Tejar, or River of Tiles, after the tile factory they erected on its shores. It is unknown, however, after which Portuguese man or men the ravine was named; that name already existed when Don Diego Núñez da Silva arrived.

  From the beginning, the residents of Ibatín had to struggle against two threats: the exuberance of nature, and the Indians. The breath of pumas, those tigers of the Americas, emanated from the jungle, and the river ran through astonishing gullies; in the rainy season its tributaries swelled rapidly and turned the river into a dark, aggressive monster, which once reached all the way to the threshold of the main church.

  A perimeter of tree trunks surrounded the town. Each neighbor was obliged to keep weapons in his home, and at least one horse. They lived ready for battle. They had to take turns making the rounds of their insecure fortifications. Don Diego fulfilled this duty every two months, and Francisquito felt great pride at watching his father prepare, at the way he checked his firearm, counted his munitions, and placed a helmet over his copper-colored hair.

  The main plaza of Ibatín was intersected by royal roads that led to Chile and Peru to the north, and the plains of the pampas to the south. The racket never ceased: the din of wagons, the braying of mules, the bellowing of oxen, the whinnying of horses, and the passionate haggling of merchants. At the center of all those swirling people, beasts, and vehicles there stood a Spanish cherry tree, also called the “tree of justice.” It was the rustic axis of the city: a testimony to its founding and a sentry overseeing its growth. Its solid rootedness to the earth—“in the name of the king”—legitimized the colonists’ presence and actions. The Spanish cherry tree was the site of floggings and executions. Prisoners met their severe sentences with rope around their necks, flanked by guards. The town crier declared each crime, and the executioner carried out the hanging. The Spanish cherry tree exhibited the corpse with a macabre pride; neighbors gazed morbidly at the body as it hung and swayed ever so slightly, as if bearing greetings from hell. On feast days and celebrations, the bodies had to be removed before they could fulfill their punishing, instructive role. Feasts for the birth of a prince, the coronation of a new king, or the designation of other new authorities—it was essential that Sundays and saint days never be contaminated with an execution. Not because executions themselves lacked festive elements, but because Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, and it behooved good Christians to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what belongs to God.

  The plaza was, then, a constant spectacle. If there wasn’t a hanged man, accompanied by the swiftly arriving flies, there was secular revelry. If there wasn’t a bullfight, there was almost certainly a procession: against the growing proximity of the river; against an epidemic, because of the lack of rain; because of the excessive rain; against the renewed threat of Calchaquí Indians; or to give thanks for a good harvest. During processions, the four religious orders paraded, each with their distinctive traits: the Dominicans, the Mercedarians, the Franciscans, and the Jesuits. The maniacal Brother Antonio Luque usually led the litanies and imprecations with his booming voice, and this allowed him to remind hidden heretics of his fearsome power as a familiar. He marched before the idols, eyes on the dust of the road because “dust we
were, and dust we shall be,” and every once in a while he glared irrefutably at whomever would soon be denounced. Later, there would be horse races and simple theatrical presentations on sacred themes, as well as poetry contests, in which Don Diego had once participated. As darkness fell, fireworks blazed. Once, Francisquito burned his hand in an attempt to light one.

  This spare description would be incomplete without remembering that the town hall, the seat of local government, stood at one side of the plaza, a building composed of several rooms surrounding the requisite courtyard. Its whitewashed walls shone like snow on a high mountain. At the center of the courtyard stood a well, which was inlaid beautifully with tile. Across from the town hall, the main church loomed. There they stood, the two powers that struggled for dominion of Ibatín, the province of Tucumán, and the entire continent. Terrestrial power on one side, heavenly power on the other. And just as the first extended all the way to the cruel Spanish cherry tree, the second extended to other churches and monasteries. At the Spanish cherry tree, Caesar ruled (even those condemned by religion were turned over to the secular branch), and, in the temples, God reigned. But both frequently overstepped their bounds, because God is everywhere, and Caesar cannot accept being less than God.

  On nearby streets the other churches rose, with their respective monasteries. The Franciscans built a taller church than that of the Mercedarians, and added a sumptuous chapel. The Jesuits would not be left behind: they constructed a nave with forty-meter-long transepts, and walls made of brick and adobe; they paved the floor with ceramic tiles, plastered the walls, and carefully tiled the roof; they put in a majestic altar and graced their temple with an admirably ornate pulpit. It was clear that the Jesuits had joined in the belligerence of their society.

  He pulls back the iron lock. The moment he cracks open the door, several hands push in from outside. They assume that Francisco, in his fear, will close the door. But Francisco doesn’t move. The soldiers have to rein in their vigor, because here, in front of them, in the shadows, stands a broad-bodied man whom the lamplight has brushed with gold and indigo. They stare, perplexed. They almost forget what they were supposed to say.

  The main henchman holds a lamp up and asks, “Are you Francisco Maldonado da Silva?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am Juan Minaya, lieutenant for the Holy Office.” He presses his lamp against Francisco’s nose, as if wanting to burn him. “Identify yourself.”

  Francisco, half-blinded, asks the obvious. “Didn’t you just say my name?”

  “Identify yourself!” he growls with bureaucratic disdain.

  “I am Francisco Maldonado da Silva.”

  The lieutenant slowly lowers the lamp, which now sheds light on floating, spectral dust in the air above it. “You are under arrest, in the name of the Holy Office,” he declares with pride.

  The other men take hold of Francisco’s arms. They dominate his body, because prisoners often try to escape.

  But Francisco is not thinking of that. It seems odd, but in that crucial moment his mind flies to his childhood town of Ibatín. He hears the sonorous River of Tiles, envisions the vice-patrons’ chapel, recalls the cacophonous main plaza, sees under his eyelids the snowy peaks and slopes covered in jungle, the ceaseless wagon factory and the courtyard of orange trees planted by his father. He also recalls the books.

  4

  The denizens of the vast province of Tucumán were in the habit of accumulating goods known to build wealth: subdued Indians, land, black slaves, packs of mules, droves of pigs and cattle, and fertile fields. To these they added luxuries such as silver dishware, furniture, fine cloth, gold, and delicate utensils imported from Europe. But nobody thought of gathering treasures in the form of books. Books were expensive to buy and difficult to sell; what’s more, they contained reckless thoughts. And thoughts troubled the waters in a manner that chairs or mules, for example, never would.

  Don Diego was drawn to the eccentricity of a personal library, even though it didn’t fit the mentality of his time and place. Instead of investing his savings in productive goods, he spent them on questionable tomes. He brought some from his native Lisbon and purchased the rest in Potosí. His collection would have drawn admiration in Lima or Madrid, where universities and intellectuals thrived. In backward Ibatín, however, it only made him more suspect.

  The books lined thick shelves in a small room that he shut himself into for hours of study. There he also kept his case of medical instruments and a few keepsakes. Nobody could enter this room without his permission. The slaves had precise instructions, and Aldonza, ever understanding, made sure her husband’s will was respected.

  Francisco loved to creep into that makeshift sanctuary when his father read or wrote there. He took pleasure in keeping him company, and imitating him: he’d pick up a volume tenderly, wedge it on his chest like precious cargo, place it on the table, open the hard cover, and riffle through page after page of symbols that all looked the same. Colored panels and illustrations rose up from the unruly sea of letters.

  Among those volumes, one stood out: Theater of the Pagan Gods by the Franciscan Baltazar de Vitoria. It was a spellbinding catalogue of pagan deities, bursting with tales of fabulous beings and the ridiculous beliefs that existed before the arrival of Christ. Brother Antonio Luque was against Francisco’s looking inside such a book.

  “He’ll confuse it with religious material.”

  His father, on the other hand, believed the book would strengthen the boy’s powers of reasoning.

  “It’ll help him not become confused—that, exactly.”

  The boy read it out of order. Heroes, gods, filicide, betrayals, metamorphoses, and miracles took place alongside realistic plots. He learned to respect crazy ideas: they had power, too.

  When his progress in Latin allowed him to translate a few verses, he played with the Anthology of Latin Poets compiled by Octaviano de la Mirándola. His father told Brother Antonio Luque that the poems by Horace found in that volume unfurled a fantastic lyricism and that his phrases penetrated the mind like a welcome rain. But the severe monk was not interested in lyricism, only faith.

  “Horace’s morals,” Don Diego continued, “are pleasing to Christian sentiment.”

  “Morals,” Luque countered dryly, “do not need to be pleasing, only obeyed.”

  Between the medical and general sections of this personal library stood the six volumes of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia. It would take Francisco years to read them in their entirety. Those fascinating volumes distilled the thirty-seven books written by that brilliant Roman, a hungry man who devoured all the knowledge of his time. Francisco studied without limits, starting with the origin of the universe and everything it contained; Pliny even knew Earth was round. Don Diego had boundless admiration for Pliny. By his count, this Roman scholar had studied a grand total of two thousand books by 140 Roman authors and 326 Greeks. His thirst for knowledge was so intense that he avoided walking in order to save time; he was always accompanied by scribes to whom he dictated his observations. His collection was intelligent and, despite his peerless erudition, he had the humility to cite his sources. A few of his observations were astonishing: he affirmed that animals are in tune with their own instinct, act in accordance with it, and in this manner resolve their problems, whereas man knows nothing about himself unless he learns it; the only thing he knows how to do innately is cry. Therefore, the duty of each human being is to learn and become aware, Don Diego added. After hearing that, every time Francisco cried, he said to himself, “I’m behaving like an animal. Now let’s see how a man behaves.”

  Pliny dedicated many pages to fabulous beings. It delighted him to describe people with backward-pointing feet, mouthless animals who ate by inhaling scents, winged horses, unicorns, people with such colossal fingers that they could cover their entire heads with them, like hats.

  “Is it all true, what Pliny wrote?” asked Francisco.

  “I’m not even sure it was true for him,” his fath
er answered, stroking his beard, which was carefully trimmed and flecked with gold. “But he wrote it because it was true for somebody. He took on the task of compiling, not of censoring.”

  “Then how do we know if it’s true?”

  Don Diego shook his leonine head. “That’s the great dilemma of all thinkers,” he sighed. “Or of those who love thought.”

  5

  Next to the cedar bookcase that held the beloved books, there stood a chest in which Núñez da Silva kept his best suit and a few linen shirts. At the bottom, hidden by clothes, the curious Francisco found a rectangular case covered in purple brocade, wrapped several times over with a cord and closed with a knot.

  “What’s this?” he asked his mother, having taken the strange object to her.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From the chest. From Papá’s room.”

  “With whose permission? Don’t you know you shouldn’t snoop through people’s things?”

  “I didn’t go through anything,” the boy said, afraid. “I left the clothes as they were. But I just—I found this.”

  “Put it back in its place,” Aldonza ordered with sweet severity. “And don’t go in that room when your father isn’t there.”

  “All right.” He hesitated, turning the case between his small, dirty fingers. “But—what is it?”

  “A family keepsake.”

  “What kind of keepsake?”

  “All I know is that it’s a family keepsake.” She glanced around her and whispered nervously, “A wife shouldn’t ask questions that a husband doesn’t want to answer.”

  “Then—it must be something bad,” Francisco mused.

  “Why?”

  “Papá always answers. I’m going to ask him what this is.”