Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  Marcos’s slow pace resembled that of a caged tiger. I suddenly thought he might pounce on my neck. His mother’s illness wasn’t only stirring sorrow, but his bitterness. Why had he called me? He could have summoned Juan Flamenco. Or one of the doctors without titles. His hostile voice came out full of spines.

  “I wanted you to see her,” he muttered in a hoarse voice.

  I turned in my chair. He was standing behind me again. He placed his hands on my shoulders, hard, leaning his weight on me. This was the puma’s pounce—I grew alarmed. His fingers pressed into my flesh.

  “That’s what happened to her when my father was arrested.”

  I tried to stand up, but he was stronger than me.

  “That’s what happened,” he said again, jaws tense, forcing me to look at her again.

  With my right hand I patted his left arm, which had become a claw biting my shoulder.

  “And it was all because of the denunciation your bastard of a father made, Francisco—” He suddenly released me and took a few steps back.

  “Marcos!” his wife exclaimed.

  My head trembled at the accusation. I turned to stare at them.

  “After his horrific arrest, she suffered a stroke,” Marcos said. “Apoplexy. Or a seizure. As you like to say, you doctors—words, words!” He waved his hands as if to scare away flies. “She lost consciousness for a week. Several bloodlettings were performed. But she still became a cripple. Paralyzed and mute. Eighteen years! Yes, she managed to move with help, to talk like a baby. My father imprisoned in Lima, and us, here, with Mamá destroyed.”

  His wife approached in an effort to calm him, but he kept her at bay with a wave of his hand.

  “I truly feel what you are saying, Marcos,” I murmured, mouth dry, confused, ashamed. “My mother was also destroyed by the brutal arrest. Hers was a sadness that took her life, swiftly, in three years.”

  Marcos raised the candle and illumined our faces. His eyes were bloodshot. The firelight spilled flickers of black and gold across his skin.

  “I’ve cursed you, Francisco!” He bared his teeth. “You and your traitor of a father. We welcomed you in Córdoba with open arms, we left you our home—but your father, your miserable father—”

  “Marcos!” I grasped his wrists. “They were both victims!”

  “He denounced my father.”

  “He never told me that.” I shook his wrists, at the verge of sobbing, because he had told me but I had not wanted to register it.

  “You think he’d confess to such a crime? The facts are eloquent enough; a short time after they arrested your father, the order for my father’s arrest was signed. Who, if not he, had given his name?”

  “My father is dead now. The torture left him broken.”

  “Let me go.” He freed himself from my grip and went to the far end of the bedroom. “Let’s see if now you can do something for my mother.”

  I asked his wife to help me adjust the patient’s position. Turning an unconscious patient on her side can help with breathing. I cleaned her mouth with a damp cloth. I felt a thick, devastating tumult inside me.

  Marcos summoned the slave who had brought me from the hospital and handed him a scroll.

  “Take this to Brother Juan Bautista Ureta. In the La Merced monastery. Tell him to come immediately to give my mother her last rites.”

  I opened a vein in the patient’s foot and let out dark blood. Then I covered the incision with a bandage. I washed the scalpel and cannula and closed my instrument case. I cleaned the patient’s mouth again. Her breathing had become regular.

  A few minutes later, Marcos welcomed Brother Ureta. He thanked him for having come so quickly. He was a hardy priest with deep bags under his eyes. A few neighbors also entered the bedroom. The priest put down a small case and leaned in close to the patient. Then he looked at Marcos, his wife, and me. His sinister gaze lingered on me.

  “I’m the doctor,” I explained.

  “She’s not dead, but—is she conscious?” he asked.

  Marcos and his wife lowered their gazes. The priest’s criticism was clear and serious. A terrible negligence had been committed, because this old woman’s soul could no longer give a confession, could not take communion, could not receive adequate preparation for the eternal voyage. She would be defenseless.

  I had to solve the problem, and not admit that I had found her unconscious and they had requested religious assistance too late. I decided to lie to protect Marcos.

  “She fainted during my bloodletting. When they called for you, Father, she was still speaking lucidly.”

  “She was speaking?”

  “She babbled sounds, Father, as she has in recent years,” I said, realizing my error. “She was conscious.”

  He took out his sacred paraphernalia and arranged them on a chair beside the bed. He placed the stole around his neck, opened his prayer book, and began to pray. The neighbors followed suit.

  The prayers resounded from the walls.

  “I absolve you of your sins.” He dipped his thumb in the oil and traced a cross on the pale forehead. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

  “Amen,” we repeated.

  He gathered his sacred items, closed the case, and stared at me again. His attitude was a mix of curiosity and doubt.

  “Aren’t you Doctor Francisco Maldonado da Silva?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  His face softened somewhat.

  “Do you know me?” I asked.

  “Now I know you personally. Before, I knew you by reputation.”

  I shivered. Reputation? What did that mean? Marcos accompanied him to the front door with a couple of neighbors. Then he returned to the bedroom and thanked me.

  “It’s fine, Marcos. I’ve been through similar situations myself. It’s very painful.”

  “Tell me how much you charge.”

  “Let’s not talk about that now.”

  “As you like.” He sat down near the bed. “What more can we do?” He gazed at his mother, biting his lips.

  “Keep her company.”

  “I understand. Thank you again.” He covered his face with his hands. “How much she’s suffered, my poor mother!”

  I approached and put my hand on his shoulder. He stiffened. Then he backed away. “You can go, Francisco. You’ve fulfilled your role.”

  I searched for another chair and brought it to his side. He seemed startled, but said nothing. The servants refreshed the candles. A few neighbors left, others came, always silent. When night fell, they brought us pots of hot stew. We only exchanged words in relation to the patient, her change of position, the wiping of phlegm from her mouth, replacing the cold cloths on her forehead. We dozed. I was woken by a hoarse snore. The bedroom was darker; a few hours had passed. The patient was sliding onto her back and choking. She had suffered a lapse in respiration. I adjusted her head to the side and pressed her chest until the rhythm of her breath became steady. Then I again turned her on her side. The servants refreshed the candles again. I slept sitting up for an uncertain amount of time, until someone shook my arm. I saw Marcos. I became alert and went to her. Once again she was on her back, but silent. I felt for her pulse and looked into her pupils. It was over. I reached out my left arm, respectfully. Before me, confused, Marcos had risen to his feet. Our fingers and lips moved, hesitantly. And we embraced.

  Only then could he weep.

  He says, finally, that the Holy Office of the Inquisition is benign. That he should ask for mercy because it will be granted.

  Alonso de Almeida wipes the foam from his lips without taking his eyes off the prisoner, who remains immobile, seated on his narrow bed, against the wall. He believes that his sharp words have cut into the man’s heart.

  Francisco swallows and blinks. Now, it is his turn.

  97

  Marcos’s revelation moved me deeply. It had been inevitable that my father, broken by torture, would cede to the demand for names. The inquisitor
s weren’t naïve. But it was acutely painful to me that he had denounced his friend Juan José Brizuela when he had heroically kept his silence about Gaspar Chávez, Diego López de Lisboa, José Ignacio Sevilla, and so many others. Papá had been a noble man, but he was no saint, and he didn’t become a martyr. Above all, at the end of the day, he was a selfless teacher.

  I owed him my identity as a Jew. He knew how to fill it with dignity; he knew how to show me its values.

  He had loved the Sabbath feast. And he’d loved it especially because its observance was forbidden. It was a form of rebellion against oppressors. With the Sabbath, since ancient times, the importance of time was marked, as well as the right of human beings, animals, and even the earth to rest. Saturdays gave order and shape to progress. Papá had explained that, in Hebrew, the days of the week had numbers for names: Sunday was day one, Monday was two, and so forth, and, after the sixth day, the culmination arrived—a different kind of atmosphere, Shabbat. This enshrined a binary system of tension-relaxation, struggle-rest. Like life—inhale-exhale, systole-diastole.

  To help enjoy this contrast I often took long walks along the outskirts of Santiago. I put on clean but wrinkled clothes to evade the suspicion of the Holy Office’s alert tentacles. I carried a small emergency instrument case, though without the heavy tools inside. If several people claimed to have seen me loafing about on a Saturday, it could send me to jail, and, after that, perhaps, to be burned alive. For that reason, I also varied my path.

  Sometimes I walked toward the east, murmuring the psalms that describe the wonders of creation because the mountain range stood before me with its ermine cape draped over its peaks. Other times I walked toward the north, crossed the cold waters of the Mapocho River and entered the walnut copses, where I’d sit on a fallen trunk and read the sacred word. Occasionally I chose the path to the west, which led to the sea. I also walked toward the unsettling south, where the Arauco Indians questioned the rights of conquest. It was a good opportunity to meditate on the many wars against Jews by so many peoples who did not accept our right to exist.

  Some Saturdays I did not go out on these walks—it could draw attention that I walked so far every seven days. I decided to explore Santa Lucía Hill. Ancient Greece would have exalted it, as it was an ideal place for nymphs to be chased by the god Pan and his entourage of ardent fauns. The dense glades offered certain hiding places in which the kisses, caresses, and promises of sinful Santiago freely roamed. In its hidden corners there vibrated a joy as invisible as it was ineradicable. The advantage of being seen there lay in the fact that nobody could accuse me without admitting his own guilt. No one wandered through those verdant spaces without the spur of lust. But it was better to be caught out being lustful than to be suspected of heresy.

  I climbed the gradual slope. Nobody appeared between the bushes or beneath the dark trees. It was possible to believe that the place was enchanted and that its erotic visitors had been transformed into foliage. I ascended the rough path all the way to the top of the hill. The city of Santiago and its cultivated fields spread out before my eyes. The pure air filled me with a sense of well-being. I recognized the spacious central plaza, with its government buildings and stone cathedral. I located churches, monasteries, convents, the Jesuit college, the hospital where I was supposed to be working at that very moment, Marcos Brizuela’s house, Pedro de Valdivia’s house, and the place where Isabel lived. I stayed there for a long time, thinking optimistically and thanking God for smoothing out my complicated life.

  My bond with Isabel kept growing. I truly loved her, and she was beginning to show signs of affection. Every time I went to visit her, I not only heard bells in my chest, but also saw happiness in her eyes, joy in her hands, and sun in her smiling lips.

  I had also achieved a long-held dream to reestablish contact with my sisters in Córdoba. They had at last responded to my letters. Their status as orphans had instilled them with so much fear that they were ashamed of my letters and felt obliged to show them to their confessor. And the confessor took a few years to give them permission to respond. Felipa, who had been rebellious and daring like Papá, had become involved with the Society of Jesus. For her part, Isabel, who more closely resembled our mother, had left the convent and married Captain Fabián del Espino, an Indian overseer and local councilman, to whom she bore a daughter named Ana. But the poor woman had just become a widow. This sad news was accompanied with guilt; she said that she had not known how to attend to her husband as his fragile health had required. They were alone, and in a state of constant distress. It did not escape my attention that both of my sisters signed with the single last name “Maldonado,” with its Old Christian sound. “Silva” was excluded—it was associated with my father, his Jewish lineage, and the mythical polemicist Haséfer. It was clear that these poor women had not recovered from the stigma that had killed our family. In my most recent letter, I had invited them to be reunited with me in Santiago. I told them that this was a treasured goal I had kept with me since the very night of our last separation. I also asked about Luis and Catalina, and begged them to find out whom they belonged to and how much it would cost to buy them back.

  That day, I inhaled the pollen of the Sabbath and retraced my steps toward home with the hope of soon having a family again. Still hidden behind the trees, and before appearing in one of the hill’s sinful regions, I took the precaution of glancing in both directions. I saw only a couple of black people pushing a cart. I walked directly toward them, at a rapid pace, to better evade being seen. But before I reached them I felt a corpulent presence that stopped me in my tracks. I recognized his eyes of coal.

  “Good afternoon, Brother Ureta,” I said, greeting him and trying to seem indifferent.

  The inspector monk took a few seconds to reflect before responding. If he’d seen me coming from the hill, I thought, he would not connect a sanctified Saturday with the sin of fornication. He would of course suppose that I’d been rolling around with a whore. That was better than him suspecting my Judaism. But I was wrong.

  98

  Among the groups that formed in the cathedral’s atrium after leaving Mass, I once again discovered the imposing Juan Bautista Ureta. It would have been too much to think that he’d been looking for me. Nevertheless, to my surprise, the monk zigzagged between the faithful and ended up right in front of me. I felt a chill.

  “I need to speak with you,” he said coldly.

  I stiffened my back. At the prospect of attack it was best to bring one’s bones into solid balance.

  “Whenever you like.” I made myself sound cold.

  “Could it be now?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Let’s go outside to walk, then.” He gestured with his head toward Isabel’s family. “Is there anyone you need to greet first?”

  “Yes, thank you. I will say my goodbyes to Don Cristóbal de la Cerda.” Too much docility or obsequiousness would only raise suspicions.

  I paid my respects to Doña Sebastiana, her husband, and the enchanting Isabel. I excused myself for leaving immediately, as Brother Ureta had need of me. Doña Sebastiana invited me to come by her residence during the afternoon to sample the sweets she had prepared with fruits from the south. Isabel sensed my hidden nervousness and stopped smiling, but she didn’t ask any questions. In the middle of that frustrating moment, I realized that we had already begun to share invisible forms of communication. I looked at her gratefully, thinking, “This must be the woman of my life.”

  Brother Ureta knew of the process my father had endured, and of my good behavior in the Dominican monasteries of Córdoba and Lima. He was aware of my light and my shadow.

  “Your father was granted reconciliation by the Holy Office,” he spat out first. “He was a fortunate man.”

  What was he getting at?

  “Your father abandoned his Jewish deviations,” he added, staring at me with dark eyes that seemed to be devouring me.

  I realized that he was taking me to S
anta Lucía Hill, to the same part where he’d run into me the previous day.

  “The information gathered leads one to think that your deceased father and you have behaved with devotion.”

  “Thank you.”

  He forced a cough. “When you attended to Marcos Brizuela’s mother—”

  I tilted my head. “What?”

  “When you performed that bloodletting on Brizuela’s mother”—he emphasized the word “bloodletting”—“you forgot that it was more urgent to save her soul.”

  “Why would you accuse me so unjustly?”

  “With that bloodletting you made her lose consciousness and deprived her of her last confession.”

  The accusation was so serious that I was on the verge of dissolving into explanations, but I would only have become tangled in them. And I couldn’t put Marcos and his wife in a risky position, because they were the ones who’d decided to summon a doctor before summoning a priest.

  “I didn’t suspect that my treatment would produce such a lamentable effect,” I lied.

  “Our holy mother church is wise,” he exclaimed. “Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine. In a series of councils it prohibited priests from practicing medicine, to protect us from clumsiness like yours.”

  “I realize that mine is a sad profession,” I replied humbly. “Every shortcoming fills us with guilt, Father. Please, do not discredit us. We work with an object that is extremely difficult and sensitive—the human body.”

  “The body! Doctors live obsessed with the body! They even grope cadavers to reveal its mysteries. It’s a vile profession, loved by Moors and Jews for good reason. They neglect the soul and forget that illness is the direct consequence of sin. Sometimes they try to persuade us that they come from a purely physical disturbance, as if we were machines.”

  “I don’t simplify things so much.”

  “But when it comes to the facts, you bear the guilt for Brizuela’s mother having died without confession,” he blurted harshly. “Do you admit to your horrifying error, or not?”

  “I’ve already told you that it wasn’t intentional.”