Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  “No,” Martín insisted. “This is an offering from the body to purify the soul.”

  “If he hadn’t fainted, he would have kept on to his forearms, his shoulders, his head. Absurd.”

  Martín stared at him in shock. “What are you saying, idiot Jew! This saintly monk might hear you!”

  “He’s half dead.”

  “God blessed him by making him faint just in time, don’t you see?” Anger blazed in Martín’s eyes. “Be quiet, now. Help me bandage him.”

  Francisco unwound cloth and wrapped it around the burned hands. They worked in a tense silence. Afterward, they adjusted the body so that his head would be somewhat elevated.

  Martín stared hard at Francisco. He was tearing up. His sweat glimmered in the trembling light.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Martín bit his lips. “I beg your forgiveness. I have no right to offend you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Forgive me.”

  “I forgive you.”

  “Thank you. I’m a mulatto dog. An irredeemable sinner—” He held back an imminent sob. “Your Jewish blood is not your fault. Not even the proximity of a saint like Brother Manuel keeps my tendency toward wrongdoing at bay.”

  “Don’t be so harsh to yourself.”

  Martín pressed Francisco’s wrist. His face became impassioned. “Come and whip me,” he proposed.

  “What?”

  “Come. I beg you! You should punish my intemperance. Father Albarracín died because of my sins. Brother Manuel burned himself because of my sins.”

  Francisco pulled his wrist back. His head was full of the cacophony of the tavern’s wine, the Scrutinium Scripturarum, the metamorphosis of Isidro Miranda, and Brother Manuel’s self-punishment. Now Martín was asking him to become a tormentor. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and walked out to the dim courtyard. A multitude of eyes stopped him; the monks had gathered to pray before Brother Manuel’s cell. He tried to go past them, but they would not let him through.

  Suddenly, pincers bit his stomach. A ribbon of fire rose in his throat and his vomit landed on the habits closest to him.

  81

  The rats in the cell had grown accustomed to Francisco. They ran through the beams and walls to mark their territory. They swung from the cane roof or bolted across the dirt floor with no concern for the student’s body. They had even stopped running over his legs and face.

  It was not the rodents, therefore, that impeded his sleep that night. The recent cataclysms seeped through the tangle of his fatigue. Manuel Montes’s charred hands had still emitted smoke; his fingers were black claws encrusted with blood and ivory attached to a lifeless body surrounded by a chorus of weeping monks. Between the cassocks, two artificial figures appeared, wearing ancient mantles, with mouths like those of marionettes; they were expounding on the sacred writings with great knowledge but little logic. They debated. Better said, they dramatized a debate: Saulo—old and antiquated—said exactly the things that Pablo—young and intelligent—could refute. And whenever Pablo became distracted in a weak argument, his senile adversary helped him with a new one so he would receive more blows to the head. The decrepit Saulo strove to lose with the same effort that the brilliant Pablo put into winning. From Scrutinium Scripturarum, Francisco returned to poor Brother Manuel. What if he died? Who would be his guardian before the university authorities?

  As his body turned on a spool of evasive sleep, an opaque radiance grew in the narrow window. It was the middle of the night and Francisco stared at the opening as Moses had at the burning bush. A revelation surely had to come through there. Then he heard the whir of a whip, and ensuing moans. There were no words, as Moses had heard, but rather the cries of a flagellation. The blows came in a steady rhythm.

  The good Martín was delivering his third round of lashes near Francisco, to leave no room for doubt as to the sin he was trying to purge. Francisco, trapped, covered his ears to escape.

  Francisco knew that Martín engaged in regular, biweekly flagellations, in addition to the ones he undertook as called for. When he finished those sessions and the monastery grew quiet, he shut himself in to pray. His body and soul progressively divided into many pieces, all of them burning and alive. The man’s reddened eyes became buttons of ecstasy, his muscles tense as rope. He stripped his torso, pulled the stretcher that served as his bed, which was also used in the monastery to carry corpses, against the wall, and took down a chain with steel hooks on it. His mind imagined becoming many people. The dimness, isolation, and inner turmoil created a fantastical state of fragmentation. His arm grasped the chain, and he became his father. The arm poured rage onto the offspring who tried to be a son. He shouted, “Mulatto dog!” He unleashed deep disappointment and fury onto his shoulders. Instead of a white descendant, this cockroach had come to him. “Ridiculous black man! Idiot! Disgusting!” The insults gave strength to his arm. Martín was Martín, doubled over and suffering, but he was also his father, marvelous and resentful. His shoulders belonged to a condemned man, his arm to a nobleman. His mouth hurled insults and smiled with power. The blood of a despicable black man flowed from his back. For several minutes, his brain and arm functioned as those of the gentleman Juan de Porres, whom the king of Spain had distinguished with a mission to the New World.

  He also became the harsh slave trader who hunted human beings in Africa and prevented their escape through beatings. Like this one. He had to destroy his own dangerous love of liberty and stomp on the urge to rebel. Martín saw those embers within himself. They had to be put out in a clean blow. “Take this, disobedient black crook!” He was a monster who should lick the sandals of those above him. His skin slashed open and drops of blood flecked the walls.

  When felled by the strong arms of his father and the slave traders, the beating ceased. Martín lay gasping on the ground. The savage residents of his body were wounded. And his soul would be relieved. After recovering his breath he would grasp the table or stretcher and clamber to his knees, then to standing. He would hang up the chain and cover his wounded shoulders with cloth. He would go out to the courtyard where the cool night air gifted him with a caress. By the well, frogs sounded their guttural castanets. Martín dragged himself through the shadows toward the chapel. He could have gotten there with his eyes closed. He opened the door quietly—he would not wake the monks, who were far away. He kneeled before the image of Christ, and rested.

  In his mind, ignited fragments painfully rearranged themselves. His arm could also belong to the soldiers who had whipped divine skin. It was good and purifying to imitate Christ. Imitatio Christi—to act impotent, to allow oneself to be mistreated. He filled his soul with the supreme example of Our Lord and returned to his cell. His eyes, in a state of trance, would begin to glow again. He would pull the cloth from his shoulders, making the blood clots jump. He would grasp the chain and resume the discipline. To the prior insults he often added, with intense pain, “You bastard son of a bitch!” Suddenly Martín was his own mother. He’d fall to his knees. The chain would wind around his neck, then spin in the air and lacerate his shoulders again. The Panamanian woman who was taken by the gentleman and gave birth to a mulatto shouted, out of breath, “Mercy, Lord! Mercy!” She had had the privilege of being impregnated by one chosen by the king, and brought an inky fetus into the world. Martín was also of her race: black, hunted in remote lands, tied like animals, subjected to hunger and thirst, then buried in the airless holds of ships. They would die there, surrounded by excrement, worms hatching in their festering wounds. And then they were thrown to the sea. Their corpses formed an underwater tapestry between Africa and the New World. Martín would shout, “Mercy, Lord! Mercy!” from his abysmal helplessness. There was no Brother Bartolomé de las Casas to advocate for them. Not even a miraculous man like Francisco Solano to offer them a sermon. As the lashes rained down, he was Christ, and Christ was a multitude of defenseless black people, and the black multitude spun through the cell, crying ou
t for mercy. That much pain had to graze—even if just graze—the foot of that sky-blue throne.

  The harsh arm grew weak. Without air or strength he fell facedown on the stretcher, a cadaver like the ones those hard crossbars transported. He would doze for a few hours.

  Routine flagellation, the horrified Francisco knew, occasionally has a third phase.

  When mysterious light filled his narrow window, a needle would pierce Martín between the eyebrows. He rose, gathered a few quince tree branches, and peered outside his door to ensure no one was there. It was cold, and the edges of things seemed gilded in a lining of frost. He moved through the familiar, narrow paths of the monastery, hewing close to the walls. He found himself before the Indian he had hired. He was a short man with a wide back and a taciturn face. He belonged to another scorned multitude. Martín, a servant of the Lord, offered him a symbolic revenge. He who represented the foreigners, the king, and Jesus Christ would allow himself to be punished by one who represented the natives, the dethroned Incan, and the idolatry that had been eradicated. An inferior Indian would remind the superior clergyman not to succumb to vanity, and show him that those who are offended can also offend. They glanced at each other fleetingly through the film of aluminum light shed by the moon. In a ceremony charged with terrible meaning, Martín handed over the quince tree branches the way a general surrenders his sword. The Indian received the weapon in silence, rigid as a statue in a church. Martín bared his torso and raised an arm. That was the sign. Then the Indian turned into a representative of millions.

  That was happening now. Francisco tossed and turned on the floor, irritated by the torture happening so close to him. His nerves twisted at the sound of moans. He stood, paced between the damp walls, and kicked a rat with such anger that it squashed against the cane roofing. Its shriek wrought havoc among the other rats, and Francisco ran from the room. The black shapes of plants and walls did not stop him from instantly reaching the improvised gallows. Martín lay facedown on the earth, the Indian still lashing at a steady pace.

  “Stop!” Francisco shouted.

  The frightened Indian backed away. Francisco made him drop the branches and ordered him to leave. After a moment of hesitation he disappeared through a crack in the wall. Martín, in a semiconscious haze, mumbled, “More, more—”

  “It’s me, Francisco.”

  Martín broke off his mutterings. He did not connect him with the Indian. He struggled to do so. He shook his head and became ashamed.

  “Cover me.”

  Francisco placed Martín’s dirty habit over the man’s back, which was covered in flowering blood.

  Then Martín asked for help getting to his feet. His limbs buckled like leaves of lettuce. Francisco carried him on his back. As they approached Martín’s cell, he began to recover his strength. He started to walk. He opened the door, climbed onto his morbid bed, and lay facedown.

  “Thank you.”

  Francisco handed him a jug of water.

  “Forgive me,” he added, in a barely audible voice. “I had no right to offend you.”

  “I’ve already forgiven you.”

  “I . . . truly deserved . . . this.”

  In the morning, Brother Martín arrived at the hospital full of enthusiasm. His face showed no sign of his nocturnal activities. He was a lily stripped of stains.

  82

  “Have you realized, Francisco,” his father said, “that I’ve been spending less time at the hospital?”

  “Only when I’m there, I suppose.”

  He nodded and adjusted his sanbenito, which the ocean wind had pushed toward one shoulder.

  “These walks are beneficial to your health.”

  Diego smiled melancholically. “A reminder of health, you mean to say.”

  “You’re better than you were when I arrived.”

  “Only in appearances. There’s no use fooling ourselves. My bronchial tubes have aged too much.”

  “As long as I’m in Callao we’ll take this stroll on the beach every day. You’ll get stronger, Papá.”

  When they were far from spies, Francisco cut to the heart of things. “I found an important book at the university.” He’d been burning to share his discovery and bewilderment for some time now.

  “Yes?” His father’s indigo eyes lit up. “Which one?”

  “Scrutinium Scripturarum.”

  “Ah.” Shadows returned to his face.

  “You know it?”

  “Of course!”

  “Do you know what seems false to me?” He dared venture the phrase.

  His father closed his eyes. Had sand gotten in them? He began to rub them.

  “Let’s sit down here.”

  “Did you hear me?” Francisco demanded.

  “That it seemed false to you—” He lay the sanbenito down like a rug. His joints hurt.

  “Saulo, the Jew defending the Law of Moses,” Francisco said, “lets himself be defeated like an idiot. From the first page he’s doomed to lose the fight. He only speaks so that the young Catholic, Pablo, can jump on his words and refute them.”

  “Perhaps Pablo is the one who’s right.”

  “Pablo doesn’t convince me either. He doesn’t listen.” Francisco was getting heated. “It’s not really a dialogue. All of it is written to show that the church is glorious and the synagogue an anachronism.”

  “The church greatly values that text. It’s been distributed all over the place.”

  “Because it honors it, flatters it. It doesn’t defend it with the weapons of truth, Papá.”

  Don Diego sensed that his son was edging toward a steep slope. “What are the weapons of truth?”

  Francisco glanced at the ochre cliffs with their green manes to the north, and the empty beach to the south. Nobody was listening; he could keep airing his doubts, frustration, and rebellion.

  “Truth?” His eyes shone. “To answer as to whether, since the time of Jesus Christ, we truly live in the messianic times foreseen by the prophets. The Bible proclaims that Jews would no longer suffer persecution after the Messiah’s arrival, and now they not only suffer it, but even lack the right to exist.”

  His father stared at him in fear.

  Francisco clasped his father’s wrinkled hand. “Papá. Tell me, once and for all—”

  The waves crashed the sand with a mighty sound.

  “I don’t want you to suffer what I have suffered,” he answered quietly.

  “You’ve said that before. But suffering is mysterious. It depends on what you make of it.”

  “I don’t believe in the Law of Moses,” Diego suddenly said.

  Francisco’s eyes opened wide, in shock. “It’s not true—”

  His father bit his lips, chewing on words and thoughts. “I don’t believe in what does not exist.”

  “Are you saying that the Law of Moses doesn’t exist?”

  “It’s an invention of the Christians,” he went on. “From their Christ-centric worldview they have fashioned something equivalent for Jews. But for Jews, only the Law of God exists. Moses transmitted it, but he is not the author. That is why Jews neither worship Moses nor consider him infallible, nor absolutely saintly. They love and respect him as a great leader, they call him Moshe Rabbeinu, “our teacher.” But he also was punished when he disobeyed. On the “Jewish Easter,” or Pesach, when the story of liberation from Egypt is retold, Moses is never mentioned. The one who frees the people is God.”

  “You believe in that law, then,” Francisco said, in an effort to clear his doubts once and for all.

  “In the Law of God.”

  “Is that the horrible filth that they call practicing Judaism?”

  He faced him directly. “Yes, my son, to respect the Law of God as it is written in the sacred texts.”

  The roar of the sea underscored their solitude on the beach. Francisco studied his father’s face, reminiscent of wood, and his wizened fingers as they played with a white mound of sand. They were the face and hands of a just ma
n. Emotion surged through him.

  “I want you to teach me, Papá. I want to turn my spirit into a fortress. I want to be who I am, in the image and likeness of the Omnipotent One.”

  The old man half smiled. “Read the Bible.”

  “You know I’ve been doing that since childhood.”

  “And that’s why you immediately understand me.”

  Francisco sat beside his father, also facing the ocean. Their shoulders touched. They felt an intimate delight at their formalized alliance. The father glowed with an ineffable pride: the quality of his seed. The son was overcome by an intense emotion: the integrity of his ancestry. At last, they had been able to transmit the tenacious secret. At last they trusted each other completely.

  “Now I’m not alone anymore, Papá.” He reached out his hands toward the dark blue that glittered with shards of silver, then up, toward the seagulls as they rode invisible currents. “I belong to a family full of poets, princes, and saints. My family is innumerable.”

  “You belong to the ancient House of Israel, to the long-suffering House of Israel, which is also the House of Jesus, of Paul, of the apostles.”

  “My wretched blood is the same as theirs. As worthy as theirs.”

  “The same blood as Jesus, as Paul, as the apostles. They cannot digest that. They don’t want to see it. They draw a hallucinated line between the Jews whom they venerate and the Jews whom they scorn and exterminate.”

  “The Scrutinium tries to expand that border.” Francisco could not shake off the shoddiness of the libel. “Saulo and Pablo are portrayed as close, yet very different. The apostle Saint Paul would have been Rabbi Saulo before conversion, as Pablo de Santamaría had been the Jew Solomon ha-Levi. Ha-Levi forgot his origins. His ambition drove him to indignities, Papá.”

  “His fear, my son,” his father corrected him. “Fear is worse than death. I have felt that fear.”

  His son nodded sorrowfully. That was the most painful of subjects.

  “Out of fear, I abjured, wept, lied, confessed,” his father murmured. “My being disintegrated. I said what they ordered me to say.”