Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  “To the killing place,” he whispered.

  They took the path to the river. Against the sky rose the olive groves the Jesuits had planted soon after settling in Córdoba. An ox dragged the water carrier’s cylindrical wagon. Behind it walked a group of slaves bearing bundles of clean clothes on their heads, keeping a steady pace and balancing so as to keep their heads still and their cargo fragrant and fresh. Luis, limping, smiled at them.

  The street’s edges dissolved. Brush grew between the hoofprints. They caught sight of the river. Watercress carpeted the ground and cornstalks waved. They turned onto the eastern path that followed the river. There Luis fulfilled a ritual he had brought from Africa: he handed the mule’s reins to Diego and hopped on one foot down to the shore. He was very strong and balanced on that single limb, while the other served as a disabled companion. Francisco watched in fascination as he picked up a wide stone and kneeled. He pulled up blades of grass, rubbed his head with them, passed them over both shoulders, and scattered them in a crescent shape over the water. Then he cupped his hands and drank. He threw a few drops behind him. He mumbled words he’d been taught as a child. He didn’t know their meaning, but they brought good luck. He recovered the mule’s reins and the walk continued. The drops stayed on the nape of his neck for a good while, as they were gradually seeping good luck into his long-suffering body.

  They heard a distant rumble, like the sound of battle. The winding path led to a rustic edifice at the top of a hill. Stinking gusts announced the proximity of their destination. They undertook the ascent. The mule protested and Luis steered him by the harness. The resistant animal smelled danger. Luis slapped its rump and successfully urged it on. Several black people appeared and announced that the wagons were waiting by the willows. Oxen and horses grazed around them. The air reeked of excrement, urine, and the smell of raw meat. A bloody vapor rose from the back of the rectangular building. The path ended at a dilapidated gate. Diego already knew this place but wanted Francisco to see where these transactions occurred.

  The slaughterhouse functioned on a kind of plateau where men with sweaty torsos and large knives worked hard at butchering. Powerful hooks awaited the gushing cattle, and dogs sniffed between the great wheels in hopes of getting something for themselves. A destitute nobleman—just as Diego and Francisco now were—shooed the dogs by throwing stones. They were his hungry rivals.

  A vehicle began its departure; the slaves had finished filling it so the oxen were urged into motion. A bundle of intestines slipped through the rear opening, uncoiling like a pink snake; the dogs leapt on the innards and ripped them to shreds. The nobleman attacked the dogs with a long cane; he could not tolerate the sight of them eating.

  In the pasture, the commotion of pigs and cows mixed with the butchers’ laughter. Francisco also laughed when one of those men fell in the mud in pursuit of an escaped baby pig, which fled toward an empty pasture, believing this would save him. The man, a paunchy mestizo, rose with a howl and resumed the chase. Mud stained his face and chest. The man cursed, pointing his knife at the creature. The terrified animal ran back and forth, searching for a way out. The mestizo hemmed it in, caught it again, but, once again, it got away. For the butcher this was no longer a job; it was revenge. Black people, mestizos, mulattoes, and the few Spaniards who were there gathered around to watch the filthy show. The butcher was fighting with a pig for his honor. It was a parody of a bullfight. He approached the animal stealthily, then chased it, shouting. He stabbed it once in the side and another time in the foot. A scarlet ribbon slashed across its black hide. The animal broke free from its aggressor and kept running on three legs. The improvised audience cheered for the pig. The mestizo’s round belly was covered in mud and blood; his mouth foamed. He brandished his knife in the air, blind with fury, and charged his enemy. The pig flailed its head and the knife flew from the butcher’s hand. The man rolled, then stood immediately, like a monster rising from a swamp. He shook his head to fling the dirt from his eyes, recovered his weapon, and leapt at the beast again. He embraced it with his legs and punched and stabbed it. The blade pushed in and out between streams of blood. He pulled its ears and managed to open a deep cut along its throat. The pig crumpled and fell, while the butcher collapsed at its side. The animal’s neck was a crater spitting red lava. Francisco pitied the victim. The smeared butcher sat up painfully, raised his arms, and let out a triumphant roar. He leaned over the still-warm body and took to enjoying his work and his revenge. He dragged the pig and hung it up, opening it down the center and taking out the innards. He cut off its head and put it on his own, like a crown.

  “Marrano!” the crowd shouted at him from the fence.

  “Marrano!” Francisco shouted along, caught up in the brutal comedy.

  The mestizo’s teeth shone behind layers of filth. He struck up a dance and leapt around for his audience, which cheered and yelled obscenities. He made as if to throw the young pig’s head at a black man’s face, then at a mulatto, and then he put it over his genitals. Finally, he hurled it forcefully across the fence. The crowd’s focus shifted to the head as if it were a ball. Francisco realized that neither Diego nor Luis was with him anymore. Nor were they in the horde now fighting over the useless head. The destitute nobleman came running with his hands full of stones to throw at the dogs. A Spaniard shouted at a group of slaves, calling them “shitty and lazy,” demanding that they finish loading a wagon.

  Diego appeared at his side. “We’re leaving.”

  They began to walk away from the slaughterhouse. They passed through the ruined gate and started to descend toward the river.

  “What about Luis?” asked Francisco.

  Diego put an index finger up to his lips. He was walking with long, hasty strides. Francisco trotted to keep up with him.

  “And the mule?”

  Diego insisted on hurrying and not talking.

  Soon they heard the insults.

  “Marranos! Marranos!”

  “Run!” said Diego.

  They left the path. The bushes hid them well. They burrowed into them, prickly branches scratching their arms and heads. They heard the threatening voices a few meters away. Knives gleamed. “Marranos! Marranos!” They stayed down until their pursuers were gone. Relief arrived slowly, a kind of awakening. Birds sang nearby, and one circled above them.

  “What happened? Why were they chasing us?”

  His brother slapped his shoulder, sighed, and smiled.

  They opened the curtain of bushes and returned to the path.

  “Let’s run,” said Diego.

  “Why?”

  “To reach Luis.”

  A few minutes later they glimpsed the mule and Luis limping at its side. He saw them approaching but did not slow down. It was critical to arrive home as soon as possible. Diego gave him a sign of approval: the mule was carrying a sack full of meat. The operation had been successful.

  “A small compensation,” Diego said as he evaluated the amount of stolen food. “Not enough for even one of the candelabras the commissioner took from us.”

  “I want to kill him,” Francisco said, tightening his forehead. “I’m serious.”

  “Who? The commissioner?” Diego shook his head. “I want to kill him, too. Strangle him. Stab him. But who can kill a pig like him? He’s the king of pigs. In every sense.”

  “He’s a marrano.”

  “Francisquito.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t say marrano again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Call him a pig, a hog, a swine, or the son of Satan. Just don’t say marrano, that word for young pigs—that ugly word.”

  Francisco was perplexed.

  “Marrano,” his brother explained, his face going dark, “is what they call us. Marrano is what they call our father.”

  “How could you think I’m denying God?” exclaims Francisco. “Didn’t I just explain how hard I’ve worked to study His word and do His will?”

  “You den
y Him, my son, you deny Him,” the monk responds in despair, suffocated by the airless cell and the captive’s words.

  “Please remember the Gospel of Saint Matthew,” Francisco urged. “That’s where Jesus says, ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord!” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven.’ I do the will of the Father. And for this I am punished by the Inquisition.”

  Brother Urueña dries his forehead. It is very difficult to vanquish Lucifer. “This man will end up burned alive,” he thinks.

  21

  The captain of the Lancers headed toward the Núñez da Silvas’ home with firm steps, accompanied by Brother Bartolomé. His accusatory mood could be felt from afar. He entered full of hostility, without asking permission. The priest tottered behind him, carrying his heavy cat. They sat down in the living room and demanded that the family appear. Aldonza, as usual, offered to serve them sweets. Valdés rudely turned down the offer. They’d come regarding a grave matter. Diego made a calming sign toward Francisco; he knew what this was about.

  “There are devout acts and aberrant acts,” the monk began with hoarse severity. His pupils burned under thick eyelids.

  The captain nodded.

  “Aberrant acts can be corrected with devout ones. On the other hand”—he paused, and silence blazed across the room—“what can be expected of those who commit aberrant acts while they are under the suspicion of sin?”

  The ruined family looked like a group of small animals about to have their throats slit.

  “Captain Valdés has received a report of theft,” the monk said with distaste.

  The captain nodded again.

  “Debtors have committed theft. Have you so quickly forgotten that the Holy Office is now spending time and effort to recover a heretic’s soul? Is this how you repay the authorities and dignitaries here and in Lima who devote themselves to preserving the faith?”

  The captain frowned; he was focused and satisfied. “This is how it’s done,” he thought.

  “This theft, this aberrant act—”

  Isabel murmured, “What theft?” But Aldonza asked her not to interrupt the priest.

  “This theft. This aberrant act,” he repeated, “is proof of the bad habits that have reigned in this family. We had assumed that, except for him”—he would not mention Don Diego by name—“the rest of you would be safe from corruption.”

  He paused and stroked his cat’s fur. Then he raised his burning eyes again.

  “But it is not so! Therefore,” he said, lowering his voice, “I have called for the lessons with Brother Isidro to stop. They have only offered empty knowledge and have not improved you. The soul, to be perfected, needs other kinds of exercise.”

  The captain adjusted himself in his chair. He thought to himself that this monk had a golden tongue.

  “Diego and Francisco,” he continued, “will come to the Santo Domingo monastery. We will teach you to be good. As far as the girls’ education, I will be in charge of that.”

  The punishment was disconcerting. The captain also seemed surprised. What kind of penitence for violating property was this? A simple change of school and of teachers? Was the commissioner joking?

  “To cover part of the costs of this new teaching,” the priest went on without softening his brow, “you will need to offer my monastery a contribution.”

  “We don’t have anything left to offer!” Diego protested.

  “Silence, fool!” cried the commissioner. “There are always offerings when the heart desires it. If there is not enough in the material realm, one gives from the spirit.”

  “Yes,” Aldonza said, wanting to soften her son’s inappropriate outburst.

  The monk glanced at her with a glimmer of tenderness before returning to his role of inquisitor. “There are still valuable possessions in this house.”

  Diego pressed his fists and quietly muttered, “You want to keep exploiting us, you son of a bitch.”

  Brother Bartolomé turned to the submissive Aldonza. “Call for the box that contains your husband’s instruments.”

  Don Diego’s box of medical and surgical instruments contained scalpels, valves, knives, saws, burins, and lancets, some made of steel, others silver. Luis was in charge of cleaning them, sharpening them, and keeping them organized. He did this enthusiastically because only the insurmountable barrier of his race had impeded him from studying and practicing his vocation as a doctor. He would boil the pieces, polish them, and, before setting them in their places, indulge in a pretend game of physician; he’d lift a lancet as if it were a pen to open the vein of an imaginary apoplectic person, or he’d grab a scalpel and dig an arrowhead out of another invisible patient’s shoulder. He would also brandish a scalpel to scare off Francisco when he tried to play with the saws or burins. Don Diego had bought those instruments in Potosí. After his arrest, it was up to Luis to guard them.

  Aldonza ordered him to bring the revered suitcase, but the enslaved man seemed not to understand. Aldonza repeated her order. It sounded incredible, as nobody had requested it for months. Luis leaned forward, then left the room with his broken gait, crossed the grape-trellised courtyard, and headed to the servants’ quarters. Francisco hoped he would flee and hide in the secret cavern, disobeying his submissive mother and that fat man who had sold six books at a loss (or to his gain, his own dark gain) and who now wanted to get his hands on the medical instruments. Those voracious tiger fangs of his wanted another piece of his father. Hopefully Luis would not return, or else he’d hide the suitcase and say he couldn’t find it, that it must have been stolen. His hope, however, melted. Luis returned with the heavy suitcase on one shoulder. His weak leg seemed like it would buckle under the weight.

  Brother Bartolomé gestured for him to place it on the table.

  “Open it,” he asked Aldonza, coldly.

  She looked at Luis. “Do you have the key?”

  “No.”

  “What? You don’t have the key?”

  “The doctor has it.”

  “Are you saying that the doctor took the key with him?”

  “Yes, Señora.”

  Brother Bartolomé burst between them, gripped the padlock, and tried to rip it off. He twisted it. He pulled without success. He angrily ordered Luis to try to open it. The enslaved man hunched forward between the priest and the soldier. He also pulled and twisted.

  “What’s the matter?” the priest scolded. “Haven’t you opened it before?”

  “No, Father. Only the doctor would open it.”

  “Weren’t you the one in charge of cleaning and sharpening the instruments?” His mouth twisted with suspicion.

  “Yes, Father. But only the doctor would open and close the case.”

  “Tell me how he would open it, then!” the priest shrieked, arms trembling.

  “Like this,” Luis said, inserting an imaginary key.

  “Allow me,” declared Captain Valdés.

  He pushed Luis aside. The warrior struck an elegant pose and made delicate movements, aiming to create a friendly connection with the stubborn padlock. He spoke to it in a persuasive tone. But in a few seconds he was already forcing it with rage. He struck the table. He struck it again, more vigorously, and his hair fell into his face. He began to sweat. He forgot that he was being watched by a family and the powerful commissioner of the Holy Office. His tongue hung from his mouth; he swore and contorted. Brother Bartolomé begged him not to get so overexcited. The captain cursed all locks and their whorish mothers, named a saint, and invoked shit to fall on the eleven thousand virgins. The commissioner’s calming words had the opposite effect of inflaming the captain’s resentment, and, out of his mind, he raised the suitcase over his head and hurled it to the floor. The cat saved its tail by a miracle. Its meow mixed in with the general terror. The captain stomped on the resistant suitcase, adding emphasis with insults involving the genitals of cows, mares, and parrots. The monk sweat at what he was hearing but he could not stop the m
an. Francisco thought that the captain was no different from the butcher who had chased the young pig; he was only missing a knife in his hand. The stomping was so ruthless that his boots managed to dent the lid. He let out a cry of triumph, just like the butcher. He only stopped short of crowning himself with the victim’s head.

  “Pick it up!” he ordered, gasping.

  Luis lifted the wounded case and placed it on the table, in the same place where it had been before being violated. Toribio Valdés broke the lid into fragments. The old suitcase was ravaged in front of the horrified family. The captain carved an irregular orifice, his teeth gritted. He slid his hand in, smiling, and felt around furtively. His face shifted from joy to surprise. He pulled his fist out and opened it: a stone. He started at it, stupefied, and gave it to the monk. The monk turned it between his fingers, holding it to the candelabra’s light, and placed it on the table. The captain took out a second stone. A third. A fourth. Faster and faster. He passed them all to the commissioner, who stared at them with growing rage and piled them beside the ruined suitcase. The captain took out all the stones as he reprised his catalogue of curses, in which he now included the patron saints of Tucumán. Brother Bartolomé, Aldonza, and her children all crossed themselves after each blasphemy. Valdés picked up the empty suitcase, turned it around, and shook it with such hatred that it almost fell from his hands. From the hole poured a trickle of residual sand.

  Brother Bartolomé glared at Luis, his eyes full of poison, and the captain took this as permission. He pounced on the slave and hammered his head with his fist, shouting obscenities. Luis doubled over and fell to the floor, covering himself with his arms. Diego and Francisco leapt at the aggressor and tried to stop the hurricane of blows. Valdés’s spite was going to demolish the world. The slave slipped away between the man’s legs, spitting blood. The captain chased after him. They fell in the courtyard, near the well. The scene from the slaughterhouse was being repeated. Luis’s face was bleeding, and he was crying. Brother Bartolomé intervened energetically and ordered the captain to calm down.