The secretary writes rapidly, his handwriting growing larger and more uneven. The finely wrought ceiling creaks; its thousands of pieces, so masterfully carved, have never heard such a reply. The inquisitors’ hearts beat hard in their chests, but they feign serenity. They reflexively decide that this miserable man cannot imagine for one moment that he has gotten under their skin.
“You mean to impose your law on us?” Gaitán’s voice strains to maintain its dry monotonousness. “This attitude will be prejudicial to you.”
“If I swear on the cross, I will have committed my first lie.”
Gaitán turns to his colleagues. They speak quietly, clearly struggling to arrive at an agreement. The prisoner watches them while they take their time, assuring they don’t make a mistake in response to this unexpected insult. Finally, Juan de Mañozca addresses the secretary.
“The prisoner may swear in his own manner, but let his accursed obstinacy be recorded.”
For the first time, a strange vow resounds in that room, and the Nicaraguan wood groans.
Then Francisco responds to the interrogation. He has endured too much falsehood and is eager to reveal himself without the mask of shame, cowardice, and betrayal. Betrayal of God, of others, of himself.
The inquisitors find themselves faced with an unprecedented problem, a mix of insult and frankness. A case that doesn’t evade the gravity of the questions or the threat of the charges. A man who doesn’t hide his sins, doesn’t deny his condition as a Jew or his abominable practices, who doesn’t try to confuse the judges. Worst of all, he seems sincere. He repeats that he is a Jew, as if he took morbid pleasure in uttering that word full of evil resonance. He insists that he is Jewish, as was his father—who had a penance imposed on him by this very tribunal—and his grandfather and his descendants in a long, dirty genealogy of wretched blood. He informs them that his mother, however, was an Old Christian and died in the Catholic faith. He tells them that he was baptized in remote Ibatín and confirmed in Córdoba by Bishop Fernando Trejo y Sanabria. He has a solid religious education, which started in childhood; he was Catholic until the age of eighteen, when he came to Callao to reunite with his father. Although doubts riddled his soul due to the mistreatment his family had suffered, he confessed, took communion, attended Mass, and was obedient to all the acts a good Catholic should observe. But the moment came in which a powerful turbulence blossomed in him, and this happened when he read the Scrutinium Scripturarum, written by the convert Pablo de Santamaría. That deceitful book nauseated him; the argument between young Pablo and the old, senile Jew Saulo was artificial, mendacious, and did not demonstrate the triumph of the church, but, rather, its acts of abuse. That was when he asked his now-deceased father for intensive teachings in Judaism.
Behind the imposing desk, Andrés Juan Gaitán and Antonio Castro del Castillo shift in their chairs. The torrent of blasphemies is more hurtful than a spear, and they struggle to maintain their composure. Juan de Mañozca decides to interrupt him and orders him to demonstrate his Catholic education by crossing himself and uttering the prayers of the law of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Francisco suddenly goes mute. What kind of idiotic test are they asking of him? The quality of his studies is now reduced to an exam for illiterates? Are they mocking him? Do they not believe in the veracity of his tale? And then something else springs to mind: they want to find out whether an outright Jew is capable of carrying out a Catholic rite without repugnance.
“It does not harm the law of God for me to cross myself or to utter Catholic prayers.”
He crosses himself, says the prayers, and recites the Ten Commandments.
The inquisitors watch and listen with forced neutrality on their faces. The secretary continues to write quickly. He has already broken his third quill.
“Continue,” orders Mañozca.
Francisco is left without knowing the reason for such an elemental test; he passes his tongue over his lips, and completes the story of his life. He offers it to them generously. While he was hiding his identity, he was amputated as a man, and now that he exhibits it, he holds himself upright. A healing lightness has filled the interstices of his body and soul. He tells them that he married Isabel Otáñez, a native of Seville, an Old Christian—he emphasizes this, so that they will not dare bother her. He adds that they have a daughter and await their second child. He describes the suffering this separation has caused, and begs the most illustrious inquisitors to let news of him reach her, and to not confiscate all their belongings. She is a devoted Christian and should not suffer due to a faith of which she knows nothing.
“With whom did you share the secret of your Judaism?” Gaitán asks.
This is the unfailing question, as his father had told him so many times before: “They ask for names, they demand names, it’s not enough for them to see their captive bathed in tears and full of repentance.” He is not surprised by the question, or by the tone. They will ask it again with zeal and draw on all the power of their voices. But he has already prepared and planned the answer he will always use, whether awake or asleep, in the courtroom or in the torture chamber: that he only spoke of Judaism with his father and with his sister Isabel. His father is already dead and his sister has denounced him through Felipa’s confessor.
“With who else?” the inquisitor insists.
“No one else. If I hadn’t talked about it with my sister, I wouldn’t be here today.”
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They transfer him to another hole. Although inside he is still battling a diffuse fear that comes and goes, he is satisfied with his defiant conduct during his first hearing with the tribunal. His body is like that of a crushed mule suddenly freed of its burden: he has shown who he is to the most feared men in all the Viceroyalty. In that august hall, he has made the name of the only God resound, and he has faced—from his own physically weak state—the tribunal’s arrogance. It has surely been rare for anyone to show them that they do not hold all the power. This should not turn into hubris—he corrects the possible slippage—because “I am no more than a miniscule man, unworthy servant of the Eternal.” But it is obvious that the inquisitors, accustomed to receiving frightened prisoners who defend themselves with lies, who throw themselves on the floor and dissolve into tears, must study his case and, perhaps, approach it with a certain understanding. Perhaps the angelic radiance that exists in each human being will make them see the inalienable right that belongs to Francisco.
As his head spins, he doesn’t notice where they’re taking him. Does it matter? His gaze has withdrawn and he barely registers that the tiles have now become adobe and, in the end, a packed dirt floor. The corridors echo with steps, iron, and moans, and the darkness increases. The court clerks have received the order to abandon the arrival cell and bury him in a dungeon. He has already passed through the verifications demanded by the legality of the Holy Office; he is not an unclassified prisoner but an accursed Jew whose blood and spirit are infected. He belongs in a small, damp space, a suffocating trap in which his bad thoughts can be softened. Although they cannot change his blood, they can at least try to wash his spirit.
They lock him in and reinforce the door with crossbars, a bolt, and locks. Everything has been arranged to convey that his insubordination is useless and that, in the prisons, he does not possess even the most basic rights.
The inquisitors pass around the pages the secretary wrote during the hearing. They are a synthesis that neither reproduces all the despicable sentences, nor the fiery tone in which the prisoner uttered them. But it provides enough evidence to give him an extremely severe sentence. They coincide with the documents written up in Chile after each interrogation. They are also consistent with the denunciation brought by the commissioner of Santiago de Chile when the captive’s sisters—Isabel and Felipa Maldonado—testified in their confessions. This situation, however, gives no clues as to his path toward repentance. His history and evident courage could serve for light as much as for shadows, could help him rec
over the true faith or lead him further astray with his sophisms. Perhaps he would be voluntarily reconciled, with sincere tears. Or perhaps he can only be persuaded by forced reconciliation, under the light shed by torture, as was the case with his father. The crime of Judaism has four exits but only two are compatible with life: voluntary or forced reconciliation. The other two end in death and differ in that the Jew who repents before being devoured by flames can take refuge in a faster death through hanging or the garrote.
Gaitán places a paperweight on the pages and rests his head against the high back of his chair. He is irritated at Mañozca and Castro del Castillo for letting the prisoner swear in his own way. They have, indirectly, let him offend the cross, and they have conceded a right to him that will only augment his confusion. He does not agree, not remotely. These people have to be reminded that the Omnipotent One is only on one side and that the truth is incompatible with substitutes. Who is this insolent physician to impose his wishes on the tribunal? The tribunal, on satisfying them, has given away a shred of its own strength, has unnecessarily conceded power. Why? What for? Mañozca and Castro del Castillo have fewer years of experience in the Inquisitorial office than he does, and they have not yet learned to recognize the trash that comes here as flies in human form. Like flies, they only deserve to be crushed. They are unworthy, ungrateful, and irrational. This doctor has been baptized and confirmed, has been housed in monasteries, instructed at the university, and has taken an Old Christian to his bed, only to throw all this away like so much waste and proclaim his wretched blood with raging pride. It is the height of deviation. What’s more, he has the impertinence to consider himself solely responsible for his actions. Gaitán believes this to be true, that the man is solitary, that he has not cultivated his Judaism with anyone save his dead father and the attempt in talking with his devout sister. But the intolerable thing is that, instead of accepting his extreme smallness and scalding at the majesty of the Holy Office, instead of trembling, sweating, and falling to his knees, he has the nerve to refute the true faith with his oath on the God of Israel. He has shown them irrefutable proof of his subversive nature and his venomous will to erode the order of the universe.
Gaitán is tired. He is the one who most carefully reads the reports, compares testimonies, evaluates confessions. For the past two years he has been requesting permission to return to Spain. He is sick of the Viceroyalty of Peru and its miseries. But his application has not been accepted quickly. The authorities in Spain appreciate his services, his unyielding harshness, and prefer him to stay in his role for a few more years.
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His wrists and ankles have been freed because he is imprisoned in a dungeon from which not even a spider could escape. The cell is narrow, equipped with a stone bench with a mattress, and a chest in which they’ve placed the belongings that accompanied him from Chile. Francisco spends hours staring at the high window, small and inaccessible, through which the cloudy light of an inner courtyard leaks in. He is bored by the slow unfurling of hours, and wonders whether he’ll overcome the tests to which the Holy Office will submit him. One of those tests consists precisely of this, keeping him inactive for days and weeks. The black servants who bring him his rations throw him a phrase here or there, like crumbs. Francisco wants to strike up a conversation, but they are spurned people who relieve their suffering by spurning those who are worse off than they are. Among the incoherent words they have for him are admonitions that he may not read or write, or communicate with other prisoners, much less with the outside world. He may, on the other hand, request a few comforts that are sometimes granted: a warm coat, food, furniture, more candles. These benefits are paid for with the confiscated money. But if his money runs out, the benefits are gone.
How long will they keep him cut off like this? Isolation is arduous. His anxiety grows and unleashes an avalanche of despair. He talks aloud to himself, at the edge of madness, because his heart longs to connect, to express ideas and feelings. This had already happened to him before, in the cells of Chile and in the stinking hold of the ship: he reached a point at which he couldn’t take it anymore, and hope dissolved. It’s what the Inquisition wants.
Four days after his first hearing, he is ordered to put on his coarse wool clothing and prepare for a second one. He receives these orders with ambivalence. The shackles close around his blistered limbs, as if he were in any physical condition to escape. He is guided to the august courtroom. Just as before, he is accompanied by the hardy warden and two armed men. He realizes that his current prison is in the depths of the gloomy fortress, as he must go through tunnels, up and down steps, and across many thresholds before entering the space where that beautiful textured wooden ceiling offers its sarcastic dissonance. It’s all the same as before: the three tall chairs upholstered in green, the six-legged desk, two candelabras, and the crucifix on which he’d refused take an oath.
The cadaverous notary enters, his glassy eyes glued to the small desk onto which he places his writing materials. Then he sits, clasps his hands in prayer, and gazes at the black-and-green flag of the Holy Office.
One of the side doors opens, and the three inquisitors emerge. A hearing is a ceremonious event, and there can be no changes to the script. The sequence is rigid, always the same. The judges ascend to the platform with short steps, the ecclesiastical chairs are drawn back, and they remain standing like spears, cross themselves, and pray in low voices.
Mañozca orders Francisco to confess what he kept quiet in the last hearing. Does this turn of events mean that his previous testimony was accepted as true? Does it mean that they might be more disposed to listen? Could the angelic radiance that exists in each being make them see that his identity as a Jew gives no offense to God? Francisco’s spirits rise, and he decides that he’ll go further now to show them that his behavior is not arbitrary, but rather obedient to the sacred commandments, as the Bible instructs.
He confesses that he has observed Saturdays as holy days, as called for by the Book of Exodus, reciting the relevant verses from memory. He confesses that he has often invoked, for courage, the song in Chapter 30 of Deuteronomy, also reciting it from memory. The inquisitors’ fingers fidget on their armrests, as they are amazed by both this man’s unabashed recognition of his crime and his mastery of Latin and the Scriptures.
Francisco reads astonishment on their cold faces, bare hints of it, but enough to know he’s gotten under their hard skin.
The notary writes anxiously, resigned to his own inability to record so many words in both Spanish and Latin. He limits himself to mentioning that the prisoner fluidly uttered the psalm “that begins ut quid Deus requilisti in finem and another very long prayer that begins Domine Deus omnipotens, Deus patrum nostrorum Abraham, Isaac, et Jacob,” and that he recited “many other prayers spoken with a Jewish intent.”
The hearing stretches on until the inquisitors decide that the prisoner is no longer offering anything new. The session is closed, and the warden accompanies Francisco back to his narrow cave.
Locked up and alone, he waits for days, then weeks, then months to be summoned again. The door only opens to give him tasteless food or remove the chamber pot. The Holy Office is patient, and knows how to break the stubborn. It will let immobility and the void do their part.
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Francisco struggles not to lose his reason. He knows that everything they do with him, including cutting off communication, is part of a strategy. His battle will have surprising aspects, but will always be a battle. He must fight. Now his life has no other goal but this prolonged, cruel combat.
He decides to organize his days of compact boredom. There is one healthful activity they can’t take from him: thought. But thought is not just an activity; it’s his only weapon. He must protect and cultivate it. He will exercise his memory, his logic, and his rhetoric. He will fill his long vigil methodically, from the break of dawn to sundown. He’ll utter prayers and recite his beloved one hundred and fifty psalms. He’ll keep ma
ny Biblical texts fresh in his mind, along with Greek and Latin scholarship. He’ll practice answers for difficult questions, and plan provocative inquiries that he can use to shake up dogmatic assertions. He will let their grudging dialogues flow through his mind. He will ask himself questions, respond, refute, and ask again. For each hearing he might have with the inquisitors, his spirit will endure one hundred.
The inquisitors, meanwhile, attend to other matters. Francisco Maldonado da Silva has filled them with rage and a sense of impotence. They need a break from an individual who tears them from their usual lifelines. His tongue is nourished by the devil, and they should listen to him as little as possible. They’d like to see him dead, but if they kill him without breaking him first, the devil will have won. They must tighten their fists and work hard to bring him to his knees. Only then can they kill him with triumphant joy.
In any case, they do not want for work. They must judge cases of idolatry, problems with civil authority, and angry conflicts over jurisdiction among ecclesiastical powers. Every day they face financial complications or abuses of protocol. Blasphemies pile up before them, as do heretical visionaries, bigamy, vulgar superstitions, and, as the height of sin, crimes within the clergy itself: seductions in the confessional, celebration of Mass by those who aren’t ordained priests, cases of monks who have married or who engage in a shameful cohabitation. Sin floods the countryside and the city, like a swollen river.
Gaitán cannot find peace. This Jewish doctor—he mutters—who boasts of his infected blood, is a powerful opponent. It won’t be easy to make him beg for mercy, because he doesn’t see himself as guilty. He has presented his offense as a merit. And he has done so with an abundance of citations that favor his mistaken belief. He is physically chained, cannot leave or communicate with anyone, and is half dead. Yet, he expresses himself as though he doesn’t know he is facing the tribunal that could quickly sentence him to be burned. Doesn’t he realize that the Holy Office has the power to make stones weep? Didn’t his father tell him that? Because his father broke, talked, and denounced. He offered signs of repentance, was accepted into reconciliation, and received a light sentence, too light a sentence, clearly, since he then returned to his disgusting rites. A curse! The tribunal was naïve, then. It forgot that, in order to completely fulfill its mission, it had to be more exacting than what balanced logic might suggest. For there to be order and for Christ and the church to reign, victory was more important than justice, power more important than truth.
Against the Inquisition Page 44