Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  He stopped walking for a moment, turned his hulking body toward me, grabbed the edge of his cloak, and folded it. He showed it to me.

  “How many folds are there?”

  “Three.”

  “Spread them out.”

  I shrugged and did as he asked.

  “Now what do you see?”

  “No folds—just the cloak.”

  “So what do you think, then?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “No?” He invited me to keep walking. “A few years ago, in the city of Concepción, the sublieutenant Juan de Balmaceda was arrested. You haven’t heard anyone speak of him? Then I’ll tell you. Finding himself one night in the presence of other soldiers, having had a few too many drinks of wine, he claimed that God had no son. A barbarity, an extreme heresy! The soldiers warned him that this was absurd. And to prove it to him, one of them folded his cloak as I just did—made three folds, and tried to illustrate the idea. The three folds are the three beings of the Holy Trinity—one God alone, the cloak, and three, the beings. But the sublieutenant tugged at the cloak, undid the folds, and replied through his laughter, ‘Can’t you see that the folds are an illusion? Only the cloak exists.’”

  I walked at his side with my head down, searching furiously for the comment that would free me from the labyrinth in which he was trying to trap me. But before I could speak he changed topics. He was destabilizing me.

  “You wish to marry Isabel Otáñez.” The directness of these words was an unusual strategy. It hit me like a club over the head.

  “I have not yet asked for her hand. ‘There is a time to be born, and a time to die,’” I answered, with the support of Ecclesiastes. “‘A time to plant and a time to harvest.’”

  He smiled slightly. “‘A time for silence, and a time to speak,’” he added. “So you know the scripture as well as a theologian.”

  “I began studying it when I was still a youth, in the monastery in Córdoba.”

  “Shall we return to the subject of your marriage?”

  “It is hasty to speak of marriage, as I have not yet spoken to her father.”

  “And negotiated the dowry,” he added.

  I was silent.

  “Negotiating the dowry,” he insisted. “As well as obtaining his consent, of course.”

  I was enraged by this intrusion, but had to restrain myself.

  “I would like you to know,” he said, “in case you are not aware, that I am bound to Don Cristóbal by an old friendship from when we were students back in Salamanca. That friendship has been strengthened by the mercy of my enthusiastic work among religious orders to raise support for keeping him in his role. It’s no secret, and, in fact, he himself has told you of this.”

  “No, he never spoke to me of you. I am sorry.”

  “In that case, I praise Don Cristóbal’s discretion. Excellent!” He lowered his voice to whisper an intimate matter. “We are united by our criticism of the defensive war.”

  “It’s a delicate issue.”

  “It’s not supported by the bishop, by the orders, or the captains.”

  “But it is supported by the Society of Jesus.”

  “Only the Society. Even the commissioner of the Holy Office has stopped hearing reproaches. The new governor already knows it’s a useless strategy. You’ll see, Don Cristóbal will be duly vindicated.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “He deserves it. He is a great man and has accomplished admirable things, but do you know which is the most transcendent of them all?”

  I blinked. I thought of all his construction projects, campaigns, and decrees. I couldn’t decide.

  “His struggle against corruption.”

  I stared at him in surprise. Where was this man leading me?

  “Don’t you think so, too?” He grunted in annoyance.

  “Y-yes. It could be—” Was he being sarcastic? Or setting a trap?

  “As soon as he arrived he proclaimed with kettledrums that he would ferociously punish any attempt to bribe servants or relatives. Nobody was ever so energetic.”

  I felt a profound unease. Brother Ureta was turning my ideas the way wind turns a weather vane.

  “There are slanderous versions of this that have spread in the city,” he added. “Do you know who feeds them? Those miserable people who don’t make good on their taxes. They neglect their legal duties and then respond with absurd fabrications. These lands are plagued with men who enrich themselves on the one hand, and then skimp on their contributions and alms on the other. Doesn’t our bishop denounce this every week?”

  We were very close to Santa Lucía Hill. A few of its paths were already in sight. People moved at a prudent distance, as if the mountain could emit hooks and ensnare them.

  “I sense that you will have difficulties in negotiating the dowry.”

  Once again, he was meddling in my private affairs. I pretended not to feel the impact.

  “Don Cristóbal,” he added, “lost almost all his wealth to English pirates. He cannot give what he would like to. He loves his goddaughter, and, therefore, he will tell her that he is in no state to agree to her marriage because you, Doctor, are a person who also lacks sufficient means to maintain a family.”

  “That isn’t quite true, Father. I have a salary and charge fees for my home visits.”

  “Ah, yes?”

  “Do you doubt my words?”

  “No. Only that your words are contradicted by the amount of your alms to the church.”

  “I am impartial.”

  “Subjectively. The objectivity I have, on the other hand, disagrees. Don Cristóbal will not evaluate his goddaughter’s economic security based only on what you say, but, rather, on what you demonstrate.”

  “Demonstrations can be false.”

  “I, as a church inspector, need you to lend me money now, for example,” he burst out point-blank. “My order can’t provide funds, neither can the bishop. Understand that I am not asking for sacred alms, but for a loan.”

  I bit my lips. “I would like to reflect on this.”

  “All right.”

  We returned to the city center. He made no references to Santa Lucía Hill, and did not accuse me of fornicating with prostitutes, but—why that route? Why had he taken me to the same place where he had found me yesterday? As we approached the Mercedarian church, he asked questions about Bishop Trejo y Sanabria, Francisco Solano, and the University of Lima. He calibrated the effects. Suddenly, he stroked his cheeks, and, looking up into the clouds, asked, with an affected innocence, “Yesterday was Saturday, no?”

  Francisco knows that to ask for mercy does not mean absolution. In any case, it would be an indirect gesture of submission. But he has not arrived at this point in his life to retreat. He is in the middle of a war from which he did not want to flee; he knows that, on occasion, he spoke lightly, and at other times he moved with little speed. He is no stranger to the reasons for his imprisonment.

  The examiner Alonso de Almeida is probably sincere. The whips of his words are soaked in anguish, and he wants to save Francisco, but—save him from what? That good man is sure of having made an impression, and of being able to straighten out the main distortions in his spirit. But he will be disappointed.

  99

  In the calendar of festivities that my father taught me, the fast of September is meaningful. In that month, the Hebrew year is renewed, and then comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The contrition of fasting detoxifies the body and soul. Through this privation, we strengthen our will and show God and our own selves that we have reserves of energy. Fasting is also a form of penitence. We Marranos need it to relieve our hearts of that horrible fault into which we are forced: lying to our fellow man, and denying God. The prophet Jeremiah, facing the catastrophe that took down Jerusalem, preached, “Hang your heads, but live!” This coincides with animal instinct because any strategy that allows us to keep breathing counts. But it shatters our ethical principles. Every minute
of life is contaminated with betrayal. And so fasting helps us restore our balance. Joaquín del Pilar showed me that, in Lima during Yom Kippur, some Marranos would stroll along the Alameda after lunch with toothpicks in their mouths. In reality, they were fasting, but the toothpick quelled suspicion, since inquisitors were always on the hunt for clues.

  I intentionally chose to visit Marcos on Yom Kippur. We still had not established trust, as Jews had to be extremely careful. I didn’t know whether or not his conversion was sincere, and, therefore, how he related to things having to do with his old faith. Our fathers were judged and then reconciled by the Holy Office, forced to wear the despicable sanbenito until they died. In Santiago, Marcos had prospered as a good Catholic. He had married Dolores Segovia, had two children, and had bought a position on the local town council. Did he still have any reason to consider himself Jewish? Did he have any desire to maintain that scorned identity with study, prayer, and the cultivation of traditions?

  I tried to find traces of Judaism in the handling of his mother’s corpse. The physical hygiene outlined by the sacred texts—seen by the Inquisition as a “filthy rite”—extends to the dead: Jews wash their bodies with warm water and wrap them, when possible, in a pure linen shroud. After the burial the living wash their hands and eat hard-boiled eggs without salt, because eggs are symbols of life. The mourning of relatives dignifies the deceased and their loved ones and helps channel feelings of loss into the furthering of love, easing the burden. Close relatives sit on the floor for seven days, praying, talking, and eating fish, eggs, and vegetables. It’s a funeral rite full of wisdom. But I didn’t see any of this in Marcos’s home. However, my not having seen it could point to the success of the act, and not to the lack of apostasy.

  And so I visited him on the Day of Atonement, still unsure of his deepest sentiments. The fact that he was home, and not working, didn’t prove anything either; the hours of his labors were irregular and depended on the arrival or dispatch of merchandise.

  “Work is a curse, Francisco,” Marcos said to excuse himself. “It’s one of the first punishments. It says so, outright, in Genesis.”

  “Do you know where the Spanish word for ‘to work,’ comes from?” I recalled a linguistic discovery I’d made. “From the Latin word trepaliare. It means ‘to torture.’”

  “It’s perfectly clear, then!”

  “But we belong to the laboring class, Marcos.”

  “I’m no farm laborer.”

  “Laborers, in the sense of workers,” I clarified. “You as a merchant, and me as a doctor. Though we may not like it, we are closer to the artisans, metalsmiths, and carpenters than to orators and noblemen.”

  “The choice was not up to us.”

  “We could have become orators if we’d wanted to. The priest, who is an orator, has sacramental power as intermediary between Christ and man.” I looked deeply into his eyes.

  “I didn’t have the necessary upbringing to become a priest. You, on the other hand, lived in monasteries.”

  “It’s not so much a matter of upbringing as a matter of vocation, Marcos. In any case, you don’t have a priest’s vocation.”

  “Though I do have the vocation of intermediary! Priests are intermediaries, too,” he said, laughing.

  “Your intermediary work is not as appreciated as that of priests.”

  “That’s true. I don’t do commerce between Christ and men, but only between men.” He was still smiling. “And I charge for it.”

  “Everybody charges.” I was pushing things further.

  “Priests don’t charge; they receive alms.”

  “What about tithes?” I corrected him. “When alms seem insufficient, they make demands and even threats.”

  “Just like merchants?”

  “Shhhh!” I placed my index finger over my lips. “Don’t blaspheme.”

  Marcos pulled his stool closer to mine.

  “I’d like to have the eloquence of our bishop,” he whispered. “I’d do much better collecting from delinquent clients.”

  “Don’t blaspheme,” I warned again.

  “You know who’s behaved worse? The town halls that sent letters to the viceroy and the Archbishop of Lima requesting the creation of an ecclesiastical court of appeals to defend themselves from the judgments hurled so violently by our bishop. Did you know about that?”

  “He’s a passionate man.”

  “Passionate and blind. Blind with fury.”

  “Don’t make fun of his illness.” I restrained my smile. “Also, may I confess a speculation? I have my doubts as to whether he really is blind. I have the sense that he uses his supposed blindness to throw people off course and see selectively—to see only what he wants to.”

  He became serious at the sound of steps.

  A servant offered me a tray of sweets, and a piece of cake, and a bronze pitcher of liquid chocolate. I thanked her but declined. She tried to leave the tray at my side, as she had been taught to do for guests, but I insisted that she take it with her. Marcos observed me closely. He was testing me. After the servant left I begged Marcos, with a wink, not to be troubled by my choice. I added that the episode put me in mind of the fourth psalm.

  “Do you recall it?” he asked.

  “‘You have put gladness in my heart, more than in the season when the grain and wine increased,’” I recited.

  The house filled with light.

  “‘I will lie down in peace,’” he added, “‘and immediately I will sleep; for you alone, O God, make me dwell in safety.’”

  We stared at each other.

  “The fourth psalm,” I repeated. “The most beautiful prayer a just man surrounded by unbelievers can invoke.”

  “Are you saying that we are two just men surrounded by unbelievers?”

  Our eyes shone. We were both aware that we had recited a psalm and omitted the phrase Gloria patri, which all Catholics intoned at the end. That absence was irrefutable, moving proof. We had revealed our intimate worlds to each other.

  We studied each other for a long time, as if we had found each other after a long and arduous journey.

  “You just finished telling me,” Francisco responds, measuring each word, “that we should fear the devil and his tricks because they lead to our downfall. That we must fear heretics and the filthy rites of Judaism. You have said all this with deep certainty.

  “Nevertheless, Brother Alonso, believe me that, because of your work and that of many men like you, we Jews now fear something much closer and more evident than the devil: you, the Christians.”

  100

  “‘Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth! For your love is sweeter than wine, gentle is the scent of your perfume, your name is a salve that spilleth over.’”

  “Francisco, you’re so courteous, such a poet!”

  “It’s the Song of Songs, of Solomon, beloved.”

  “How beautiful!” Isabel exclaimed. “Go on, go on.”

  “‘Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.’” I caressed her.

  “I don’t know how to respond.” She shivered.

  “Say, ‘A bag of myrrh is my beloved to me, which lieth between my breasts.’”

  “Francisco—”

  “You didn’t like it? I’ll give you another verse, just for you: ‘Like a lily among thistles, so is my beloved among the virgins.’”

  “Tell me a verse that I can repeat.”

  “‘Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men.’”

  “I like that. ‘Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is Francisco, my beloved’”—Isabel smiled—“‘among the young men.’”

  “Add this: ‘His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.’”

  “I love you very much.”

  “Say, ‘Francisco, my husband.’”

  “Francisco, my husband.”

  “‘How beautiful you are, my beloved, how beautiful! Your eyes a
re like those of a dove, behind your veil. Your hair reminds me of a herd of goats descending the slopes of Gilead. Your lips are like scarlet ribbon. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate. Like the tower of David is your neck, built with rows of stones.’”

  “How excited you’ve become! I’m trembling all over!”

  “‘Your breasts are two fawns, twins born from a gazelle, grazing among the lilies.’”

  “Oh, my love.”

  “‘How beautiful you are, how enchanting, oh my love, in your delicacies! Your stature is like a palm tree, your breasts the clustered fruit.’”

  Isabel caressed my forehead, chin, and neck. We held each other in the magical atmosphere of Solomon’s verses. A flowering laurel branch moved against the wall, greeting the night of love.

  I had improved my home before the wedding. I had expanded the parlor, plastered the bedroom walls, and built servants’ quarters. I had bought chairs, two rugs, and a wide armoire. I’d hung an impressive candelabra in the dining room and added candleholders along the wall that could give off plenty of light. In the back courtyard, piles of adobe and stone awaited future expansions.

  My request to Don Cristóbal for his daughter’s hand had not been trying after all because he parted the waters. He told me that he valued me as a person, but that he needed to be assured that his beloved Isabel would not suffer privations after marriage. Therefore, he would not object to the union as long as I could guarantee that my current assets and future income would be sufficient. I sensed the shadow of Juan Bautista Ureta circling around us like a vulture. Although Don Cristóbal knew my salary consisted of 150 pesos, a respectable sum, as well as income from additional private services, he delayed his consent because of the inspector priest’s interference. My status as a New Christian was a difficult obstacle to remove. Finally, we reached an agreement, and he summoned a notary to formalize it. We needed two witnesses; he proposed that we invite Captain Pedro de Valdivia, the inspector Juan Bautista Ureta, and Captain Juan Avendaño, a relative of Doña Sebastiana.

  The notary wrote up a long document and read it in a loud voice. People assented and we signed it with the same quill, which the notary extended to us with a sure hand and arrogant nose. The text began as follows: “I, Doctor Francisco Maldonado da Silva, resident of this city of Santiago de Chile, by the grace and blessing of the Lord Our God and His blessed and glorious Mother, am arranged to be married to Doña Isabel Otáñez.” It went on: “In support of the dowry, the esteemed Don Cristóbal de la Cerda y Sotomayor, judge in this our Royal Court, has promised me the sum of five hundred and sixty-six pesos and eight reales.” Of that sum, only 250 pesos were given to me in cash, and the remainder in the form of clothes, fabric, and a few minor objects that the notary itemized in morbid detail: “one woman’s dress, with lace, valued at forty-four pesos”; “six lady’s blouses, ornamented along the chest, valued at forty-four pesos”; “petticoats from Rouen, France, embroidered, eight pesos”; “four new sheets from Rouen, France, valued at twenty-four pesos”; “an underskirt, used, eight pesos”; “four handkerchiefs, one peso”; and so forth. Don Cristóbal had triumphed in the negotiations. That same document stipulated that I would pay a compensation of 300 pesos, and it committed me to increase that sum with another 1,800 pesos such that, if the marriage should be dissolved by death or any other reason, that money would remain in Isabel’s hands. It was also added that “I recognize said donation to be accepted and legitimately declared,” and that I did so with all that was required to provide for my wife.