Against the Inquisition

by Marcos Aguinis

  He is alone again, but in the true, chilling jail of the Holy Office, in its entrails. He knows they will make him wait—as they did in Concepción, and in Santiago—to soften his resistance. He turns to the psalms for strength.

  He knows a great deal about the Holy Office, but not about its surprising irregularities—no one has ever spoken to him in sufficient detail. For this reason, he is surprised when, at the end of a mere hour, the bolt is pulled back again and a bronze face appears with a lit candle. Are they already taking him to the torture chamber? So soon? It’s not the same man as before, but, rather—a woman! She approaches him cautiously and sheds light on his head, wrists, and ankles, without saying a word. She places the candle on the floor, exits into the hall, and returns with a pot of warm milk. Francisco studies her face, so similar to Catalina’s years ago, and tries to understand this extraordinary gesture.

  He drinks, and is comforted. The woman sits at his side. She exudes the scents of a kitchen, of fried things.

  “Thank you,” the prisoner whispers.

  She watches him in silence. Francisco points his chin toward the open door.

  “What about it?” the woman says with a shrug. “You want to escape?”

  Francisco nods.

  “You wouldn’t be able to.” She lets out a long sigh. “Nobody escapes from this place.”

  Who is she? Why is she helping him? It all seems like an absurd apparition, a trick of dreams. He asks questions, and she is not stingy with her answers. She has no power at all. Her name is María Martínez. She was arrested for witchcraft; to alleviate the sentence that has not yet been handed down by the tribunal, she fulfills certain tasks in the warden’s house.

  What kind of tasks? Bringing warm milk to arriving prisoners? Showing them that it’s not worthwhile to attempt to flee even though the doors are open? Coaxing information out of them?

  She smiles sadly and unfurls her story: The commissioner of La Plata ordered her arrest for falling in love with a young widow whom she regularly visited. (Francisco wonders if she tells everyone the same story.) The commissioner admitted that he himself would have stabbed her to death because it was intolerable for a woman to bed another woman, and that this was worse than the denunciations for reading prophesies in wine, or for having stuck seven pins into a dead pigeon so that the young widow would never stop loving her. Her arrest took place under the charge of witchcraft, which was a less serious offense. The inquisitors preferred to interrogate her over the rites she performed to obtain the devil’s help. The woman speaks in a slow, confused manner, but as she speaks, she sticks a toothpick in her nose to release drops of blood. She does this to keep the blood in a handkerchief that she gives the Virgin so that she may exempt her from further torture. Each person does what they must to ease their own suffering. Finally, she tells Francisco that the warden has left for a few hours and told her to serve him a bit of milk. He is not a bad man, she says.

  “Serve milk to me?”

  “Aren’t you the doctor who was just brought from Chile?”

  Francisco tries to decipher the jumble of it; after being arrested in Concepción and enduring an exhausting series of rebukes, interrogations, and transfers, they send a prisoner to him? Had the Holy Office gone mad?

  The woman asks what crime he has committed.

  “Crime? None.”

  Her toothless mouth laughs, and she remarks that everyone always denies having committed a crime.

  “I don’t deny the cause of my arrest,” he responds. “I’m only saying that it is not a crime.”

  “Bigamy? Homicide? False titles?”

  “None of those. I’m a Jew.”

  The woman stands up and shakes out her coarse dress.

  “Yes, a Jew,” he repeats, more loudly. “Like my father and my grandfather.”

  “Them, too? All of them?”

  “All of them.”

  She crosses herself, invokes Saint Martha, and stares at him, stunned. “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid, of course I’m afraid.”

  “Then why do you say it in such an unabashed way?”

  “Because that’s what I am. And because I believe in the God of Israel.”

  She stares at him, frightened, full of pity. She whispers, “Don’t say it that way to the warden. They’ll burn you alive.”

  “You know what, María, I’ve come all this way precisely to say it to him. I need to say it.”

  “Shhh!” She covers his mouth with her plump hand. “The warden is merciful, but he can turn violent. If you say that you’re—that—he’ll condemn you!”

  She picks up the empty pot and the candle.

  “If he comes back in a calm mood,” she says, “and you tell him—please! Don’t tell him!”

  Francisco shakes his head, moves his shackled hands, and realizes that this poor woman will never understand. Nevertheless, she deserves an explanation. It’s been a long time since he’s been able to share his ideas with anyone, and soon he will have to describe them to the inquisitors. Sooner or later they will call him and will want to hear from him, directly, about what is already recorded in his documents. Why not practice with this woman?

  Francisco begs her not to go and begins to explain, but he’s interrupted by the bracing sound of a closing door. María looks out into the hall and returns to warn him.

  “It’s the warden! Stand up, quickly!” She helps him rise, arranges his hair, and adjusts his dirty shirt.

  A short, burly man enters, followed by a servant carrying a lamp. He approaches Francisco and examines him from head to toe as if wanting to suggest that their difference in height will give him no advantage. His gaze is full of scorn. He snaps his fingers and María leaves with the pot and candle. The warden disappears, too. Suddenly, Francisco is alone again, in the dark. The abrupt changes dizzy him.

  Before his eyes can adjust to the dark, the servant with the lamp returns and orders him to follow. He knows that, sooner or later, his body will be subjected to abuses in attempts to make him surrender, but his crazy longing is to achieve a triumph of the soul. And so, let them take him here and there, let them expose him to cold or heat. He wants to arrive once and for all at the moment when he can assert his defense. He is naïve; he’s idealistic; he is all the things that are not taken into account during a trial. But he can no longer withdraw; he himself closed the easier routes. The shackles drag down on him, making it difficult to remain upright. He follows the servant through a hall that vibrates when touched by the light. The guide turns to the right, and, after another stretch, turns again, and stops in front of a sturdy door. He raises the lamp and knocks. A voice orders him to enter. Behind a desk, in the light of a candelabra, sits the warden.

  Francisco remains on his feet and waits, bent with fatigue.

  The official reads the papers piled on his desk and doesn’t say a word. They must be the documents of his denunciation, drawn up in Chile. He lingers over each page; he is a responsible official who reads with difficulty. The pain in Francisco’s ankles sharpens, and a mist invades his eyes. Intermittently, the warden peers over his papers to confirm that he is still in the same place.

  After some time, his neutral voice orders, “Identify yourself.”

  “Francisco Maldonado da Silva.”

  The official takes a while to ask the next question. “Do you know the reason for your arrest?”

  Francisco rests his weight on one leg; he can’t stay standing for much longer, as the fatigue of two horrific months is overcoming him. “I suppose, for being a Jew.”

  “You suppose?”

  A grimace pulls the edges of his lips, and he answers, “I am not the author of my arrest, and I cannot know its cause.”

  The warden’s hand moves to his sword; such insolence is unacceptable.

  “You’re crazy, too?” he scolds, face red.

  Francisco leans his weight on his other leg. A heavy mass is crushing his shoulders, the back of his neck. The objects ar
ound him move and blur.

  “I urge you to tell the truth,” the man says in a bureaucratic tone.

  Francisco stammers his response: “That’s why I’m here.”

  The mist thickens and he can’t keep his knees from buckling. He faints.

  The warden rises slowly, walks around the desk, and stands next to the prisoner. With the tip of his shoe, he kicks Francisco’s shoulder. He’s accustomed to receiving cowards and liars. He digs his shoe into Francisco’s ribs and tells the servant to throw water over his face.

  “Weakling!” he says scornfully, returning to his chair. He strokes his chin and thinks. “Take him back to his cell and make him eat.”

  112

  A couple of slaves dress Francisco in a monk’s habit. Then they offer him milk and a piece of freshly baked bread. Eating causes pain in his jaw, throat, and sternum.

  “Let’s go,” they order.

  “Where are you taking me now?” Pain radiates through his whole body.

  With conspiratorial laughs they push him into the hall. Is it the same hall as hours before? They’ve succeeded in disorienting him. Will they start with the rack, as they did with his father? He notices that the warden is walking at his side, hardy and severe. When did he show up? Francisco’s hands rise to his chest. His perception has become distorted; fatigue strains his lucidity. The chain tangles around his ankles.

  “What’s the matter?” the warden says.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “To a hearing with the tribunal.”

  Francisco trips again and the warden holds his arm and breaks his fall. Not in his most naïve imaginings would he have guessed such a rapid process. Were supernatural powers at work? For months, they had excluded him, the commissioners had made him feel abandoned, impotent. Now, in the belly of the Holy Office, its central authorities were rushing to see his face and hear his voice. Could it be true? He had the impression of passing through doors that opened before his arrival, and of being observed by silent men. They brought him into a sumptuous room, lit up by high lanterns.

  Someone pulls a stool toward him, and the warden grasps his arm again to make him sit. He has to hold the stool tightly with his hands. Is this where the tribunal carries out its function? He retches.

  In front of him, on a platform, three plush ecclesiastical chairs upholstered with green velvet stand behind a long mahogany table with six legs carved in the shape of sea monsters. At the ends of the wide table, candelabras glow, like bodyguards for the crucifix that glints at the center. Francisco sees, to one side of the platform, an almost life-sized Christ, solemn, eyes gazing at the prisoner’s ankles; his father had told him that it was miraculous, as its head moved to refute the captives’ lies or support the prosecutors’ accusations. A shudder runs through him. On the right-hand side wall, there are two closed doors, and he supposes that the judges will emerge from there or, if not, that the doors lead to secret rooms, or the torture chamber.

  Tension keeps his eyelids up. He means to recognize the objects in order to establish a sense of context and manage his fear. What’s hidden behind the black curtains in front of him? Black represents the church’s mourning for the persecutions it suffers due to cursed heresies, and green symbolizes the hope that sinners may repent. The objects are weapons wielded at his head. He shrinks back on seeing the Holy Office’s coat of arms on a defiant flag that proclaims the owner of this place and reminds prisoners of their abominable condition. He stares at it, spellbound. It consists of a green cross on a black background, and to the right of the cross, an olive branch promises mercy to those who repent; the left side is embroidered with the thick sword that administers justice to the stubborn. Under those symbols a spiny bramble glows, proof of the inextinguishable wisdom of the church, as is the fire that will consume anyone who persists in rebellion. All of this is surrounded by words in Latin, taken from Psalm 73: Exurge Domine et Judica Causam Tuam—the same words he read apprehensively the first time he saw the Inquisitorial palace upon arriving in Lima at the age of eighteen, his soul a knot of conflicts. He can’t take his eyes off the flag; it is the monstrous ear that listens to the innumerable accused and then goes out to the plaza to preside over the Acts of Faith. Finally, Francisco increases his own vertigo on discovering the famous ceiling, talked about throughout the Viceroyalty. It is a colorful arrangement of thirty-three thousand pieces, assembled without a single nail, carved from noble Nicaraguan wood brought over the sea especially for this purpose.

  From a corner of the room, a court clerk watches him and verifies that the shackles are keeping his limbs immobile.

  The first door on the right creaks, and a pale man with glasses walks in. He is a morose apparition; he doesn’t speak, look up, or seem to register Francisco’s presence. He moves like a marionette: slowly, stiffly. He stops at the bare table and, with the calm of a priest at the altar, arranges a quill, inkwell, sheets of paper, blotting paper, and a large book bound in leather. Then he sits, hands in prayer, and stares at the green-and-black coat of arms of the Holy Office, still as a corpse.

  After a while, the door creaks again and three solemn judges file in. The air grows tense and acquires the scent of death. They glide majestically, with short steps. They walk to the platform, where the high-backed chairs have been moved to ease their entry. This is a procession without images or multitudes of the faithful, with no more than three figures shrouded in black tunics.

  The notary stands and cocks his head. The warden’s firm hand presses Francisco’s arm, forcing him to rise. The sound of his chains profanes the macabre pomp. The judges stand beside their chairs, cross themselves, and pray. Then, in unison, they sit down. The warden pulls on Francisco’s arm again. The notary turns his head to the left for the first time, signaling for the warden to leave. The court clerks leave, too. In the courtroom, only the three inquisitors, the secretary, and the prisoner remain. The trial is about to begin.

  113

  The prisoner has thought of this moment, imagined questions, and practiced answers, but his mind has now gone blank. He can only assume that they will treat him with the same contempt they expressed toward his father. They will ask him to tell the truth, and every word will be neatly registered to be used against him every time he makes a mistake until he breaks. Suddenly, he recalls that his father asked him not to repeat his own trajectory. It’s an inopportune thought; he shouldn’t think of his father, but of how to perform before the icy inquisitors. The unwanted reproach grows inside him; he has disobeyed his father’s advice, and now he has to settle accounts with the tribunal. Unlike his father, however, Francisco recognizes that the denunciation was made against him because he himself sought it out when he decided to shed his double life. It remains to be seen whether he’ll be able to withstand the severity of the Holy Office, showing them that he has no reason to repent for being who he is, and defending the beliefs that sustain him. He knows, of course, that he is a mere mortal, and that the Holy Office brims with experiences and methodologies for destroying the strong of will.

  One of the judges places his glasses on the bridge of his nose, smooths the fine ribbons of his mustache, and orders the secretary to announce the beginning of the hearing. Francisco hears that this day is Friday, the twenty-third of July, in the year 1627. And that the tribunal consists of the extremely illustrious doctors Juan de Mañozca, Andrés Juan Gaitán, and Antonio Castro del Castillo.

  Andrés Juan Gaitán—that same one who praised Viceroy Montesclaros on his visit to the university—fixes his stare on Francisco and says, monotonously, “Francisco Maldonado da Silva, you will solemnly swear to tell the truth.”

  Francisco returns his gaze. The priest’s brilliant pupils and those of the helpless offender touch, like the fleeting strike of steel blades. Two opposing ideologies take each other’s measure. The recalcitrant supporter of unblemished uniformity, and the weak, but also obstinate, defender of freedom of conscience. The inquisitor hates the offender; the prisoner fears the
inquisitor. Both will battle in the ambiguous stadium of truth.

  “Place your hand on this crucifix,” he orders.

  The inquisitors’ heads, through Francisco’s eyes, seem to rise out of the table, and the tops of their green velvet chair backs resemble crowns. They are three disembodied heads, gray and sullen. Francisco makes no visible move, but the disturbing, subtle shudder is torturing his every finger.

  “Sir,” he says after a deep breath. “I am a Jew.”

  “That is the charge for which you are on trial.”

  “I therefore cannot swear in the name of the cross.”

  The notary snaps his head up and breaks his quill.

  “That is the procedure!” the inquisitor replies in frustration. “You must conform to the procedure.”

  “I know.”

  “Then do it.”

  “It makes no sense. I ask you to understand me.”

  “You teach us what does or does not make sense?” His face winced at the prisoner’s brazenness. “Are you trying to persuade us that you’re insane?”

  “No, sir. But my vow of truth will only have value if I do it in accordance with my beliefs, with my laws.”

  “For us, your law does not apply, neither do your beliefs.”

  “But they do apply for me. I am Jewish and I can only swear by God, by the living God who made heaven and Earth.”