Now, Gaitán would not modify his position, not even if the Supreme of Seville himself begged him to do so. History proves the need to harden ever further against the devil’s aggression. Recently, in fact, he’d discussed the matter with Castro del Castillo, who still dreams of achieving results through a soft hand. It’s true that the first laws against heretics did not include capital punishment, but one had to remember that back then no one knew how persistent and evil they were. The church let a thousand years pass without duly punishing heretics, and has thus shown itself to have a patience proportional to its vast stature. But it has also shown that tolerance does not lead people to the right track—in fact, just the opposite: it increases the advantages of the Antichrist.
Gaitán reminded his merciful colleague that Pope Gregory IX created the Papal Inquisition, which would become the Holy Office of the Inquisition, and put forward the principle of violent repression for dealing with heretics. The papal edict Ad extirpanda of Pope Innocent IV, published in 1252, overcame unfounded fears, and unequivocally established the legality of torture. This disposition was not easily adopted, to the harm of the church. Even now, with heretics burning across Europe and the Americas, enemies were not beaten with enough severity. This was why a man like Diego Núñez da Silva—Gaitán mutters on—returned to the dead law of Moses and confused his son. If he’d been punished better, if, for example, he’d been burned at the stake, they could have kept him from leading other souls astray.
117
The servants who bring the prisoner his food are struck by his gaze, which stays fixed on the wall, as if he were reading a text. When he senses their presence, he turns his head and accepts the steaming bowl.
“Reading is forbidden,” they remind him, even though no books or notebooks have been allowed into his cell.
Francisco nods as he brings the spoon to his mouth. A slave approaches the wall where he imagines prayers to be engraved. He finds no signs of them and traces the wall with his fingers to ensure that his eyes have not deceived him. Then he stares at the prisoner, who is slowly sipping the stew and has the magical ability to capture the invisible.
“Reading is forbidden,” he repeats, “but you can request other things.” There is a new tone of respect in the slave’s voice.
Francisco raises his eyebrows.
“Other foods, another blanket, another chair,” the man says, opening his hands.
Francisco drains the bowl. This is the first time they haven’t left immediately, which shows their fascination.
“What’s your name?” Francisco asks one of them.
“Pablo.”
“And you?”
“Simón.”
“Pablo and Simón,” he says. “I’d like to request something.”
“Ask.”
“To see the warden.”
“You may,” they say, smiling enigmatically.
Francisco watches their speedy departure, though they do not forget to lock and bolt the door.
That afternoon, the door creaks and the warden enters with an armed guard.
“What’s going on?”
Francisco is surprised, and holds back from making his request point-blank. Days of heavy silence have passed, during which he’s been completely ignored. In these interminable times he’s recited entire books of the Bible from memory, and has recalled a good part of his library with the exacting rhythm that would have been demanded at the university. The warden stands with his legs apart, staring at him reproachfully. His job as a jailor obliges him to respond to calls, and he does so in a rough manner for the sake of internal discipline. He seems shorter and pudgier than when Francisco last saw him.
“I need to speak with the inquisitors,” Francisco says.
“Another hearing?” he says, startled.
He can scarcely believe that he’s achieved it. Three days later he is ordered to put on the monkish woolen robe, his limbs are shackled, and he is brought to the feared room. One of the inquisitors tells the notary to record the voluntary nature of this hearing. Then they fix their gazes on Francisco, who has practiced his speech. He wants to move their souls and shake them out of their granite-hard hostility. He is less than David, and they are greater than Goliath; he is not trying to defeat them, but to humanize them.
“Today, I am Jewish, inside and out,” he tells them with a suicidal transparency, “while before I was only a Jew inside. Surely you can appreciate my decision not to hide behind a mask.” He is silent for a few seconds as he calibrates the words he will utter next. “I know that, in speaking the truth, I am placing my life at risk. I may already be condemned, yet I am filled with profound inner peace. Only someone who has had to bear a double identity, spending years in fear and shame while hiding what he knows to be his authentic self, can know the depth of such suffering. Believe me that it is not only a burden, but a blade that stabs you even in your dreams.”
“It is bad to lie, certainly,” Juan de Mañozca says coldly. “And even worse when one is lying to hide apostasy.”
Francisco’s eyes shine as if the inquisitor’s harshness had brought tears to them.
“I have not lied to hide apostasy, but to hide my faith.” He raises his voice, involuntarily. “To hide my ancestors, to hide my very self, as if my feelings and convictions and preferences were worth nothing.”
“They are not worthy to the extent that they oppose the truth.”
“The truth?” Francisco repeats.
A light echo moves through the room. The prisoner presses his lips to avoid breaking into arguments that would only bounce off the tribunal’s ears. Despite his expectations, this battle is even harder than he thought.
“Why did you request this hearing?” demands the angry Gaitán. “You haven’t confessed to anything new.”
“I wanted to make you record that I have not embraced my Jewish identity lightly, but, rather, out of deep conviction. For years I’ve searched my conscience, and I haven’t found any other path that is compatible with morality.”
Francisco takes a long pause and the inquisitors show signs of impatience.
“To fully be a Jew,” he continues, in the calmest tone his heart will allow, “it is necessary to endure a very painful test that God and Abraham determined in their pact. Chapter seventeen of Genesis establishes it. Do you recall it, Illustrious Ones?” Francisco half closes his eyelids, and recites from memory: “‘You and your descendants will honor my covenant throughout the generations, all the males among you will be circumcised, and this will be a sign of the covenant between us. Thus my covenant shall be marked on your flesh, like an eternal covenant.’” He opens his eyes. “I tell you this with all due respect, so that you may abandon the notion that I betrayed, out of caprice or irresponsibility, a faith in which I no longer believe, however hard I’ve tried to do so, and that I am now only toying with a different faith. Believe me that in order to take such a risky step I’ve had to bear the fires of doubt, disregard dangers, and sacrifice endless advantages. I’ve had to harm my own flesh, sink the scalpel in, and finish the task with scissors. I have fulfilled God’s task from the depths of my soul. My ancestors’ faith is no less demanding than that of Christ; it also calls for fasts and afflictions. But it puts me in vibrant contact with the Eternal and with my own dignity. That is why I spoke to my sister Isabel, only with my sister Isabel, sweet and understanding Isabel, as sweet as our poor mother, that she might join the family we are part of, a family that dates back to the prodigious Biblical times. But my sister’s judgment was overcome by panic, and she couldn’t comprehend that when one embraces the deep mandates, one also reaches the peace of God.” He pauses again, and gazes directly at them. “That is all I wished to communicate.”
He lowers his head in exhaustion.
Antonio Castro del Castillo entwines his fingers over his abdomen to keep himself still, as a sharp ache bites his intestines. This doctor defends his errors in such a manner as to move him. He glances sidelong at Gaitán the imper
turbable, Gaitán the uncompromising. Just a few days ago, he reminded him again that a good inquisitor never regrets having been overly harsh but will regret being overly soft. He massages himself surreptitiously and prays a Hail Mary.
The session is concluded.
As the warden escorts Francisco, he focuses on the chain tangled around the prisoner’s ankles and, all of a sudden, decides to help him, lifting the chain. The servants are surprised. Never before has the warden offered such a courtesy to a captive. Francisco is also surprised, but he says nothing. They continue down the damp corridors, bathed in the torch’s morbid red glow.
“I was able to hear part of your declarations,” says the warden, quite unexpectedly. “I still can’t believe it.”
Francisco notices that the man has gone pale.
“What part do you not believe?”
The warden, like a boy who can’t break his fascination with a gruesome story, asks, “Is it true that you cut your own foreskin?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
He lets out a whistle full of incredulity and fright. “You Jews, you’re bloodthirsty all right!”
118
After enduring such a barrage of projectiles, the inquisitors concur that Francisco Maldonado da Silva is a skilled man, whose audacity suggests that his stubbornness will be lasting. Not only does he confess haughtily, but he tries to persuade the judges, that is to say, to corrupt them. He shapes arguments with a demonic intelligence and presents them with a deceitful innocence.
He must be crushed as soon as possible, just like an ant, Gaitán declares, and his colleagues assent. This is not just a case of someone who changed his faith for another, the way he might change his shirt, but someone who spits atrocities. He has been doing so since the beginning of his anti-crusade, since Chile, perhaps even before then. Francisco doesn’t know, of course, that the tribunal has already interrogated María Martínez. That woman, accused of witchcraft, serves them well, as she likes to tell of her abominations and, in this manner, stir the captives to a sincerity that has them spewing out confessions at her first question. The aberrations that Francisco confided in her on his first night in Lima’s jail already thicken his awful file.
Forty days later, he is again brought before the judges to round out the accusatory information. They are ready to dispense with his unacceptable insolence.
Francisco, on the other hand, is enlivened by the hearing. What do they want now? He’s already told them his life story, and has repeatedly explained the strength of his identity. Perhaps they’ve begun to glimpse that his Judaism is not a form of aggression. Is it possible? No—he answers himself, so as not to sink into naïve enthusiasm.
The inquisitors are saying that they want to know more. Francisco thinks that the mysterious condition of being a Jew must both fascinate and frighten them. Then he explains to them that, between Judaism and Christianity, there are more parallels than differences, and that the recognition of those parallels could create more tolerance of the minor differences. But the tribunal interrupts him to state that only the differences are of interest, in particular those aspects of Christianity that bother a Jew.
How strange! Do the inquisitors wish to be enlightened? Do they want to slide into the skin of a Jew in order to reflect on their own dogma from a new angle? It sounds incredible. But it could be an ambush.
He responds that Jews are not bothered by the precepts of Christianity. He simply doesn’t accept them because they violate a few commandments: the worship of idols, not respecting the Sabbath. From the Jewish point of view, Christianity has fulfilled a commendable task in bringing millions of souls closer to the One and Only God and has spread His word throughout the globe. This is a thought sustained by many wise men and, especially, by the distinguished Spanish doctor Maimonides.
The judges confirm that the notary is transcribing wildly. The prisoner has, unfortunately, avoided the trap; they need to make him blaspheme. Then they ask him about the crucial issue of the Messiah. Francisco remains candid.
“We Jews are still waiting for him,” he confesses outright, “because the prophesies described for Messianic times have not yet come to pass. In Christianity, something similar is accepted, because it’s obvious that the prophecy of universal peace has not yet been fulfilled. So Christ will have a second coming, which, all told, will be the first one for the Jews. You see that, even in such a decisive subject, there are parallels.”
“Aren’t the miracles of Our Lord sufficient proof that he is the prophesied Messiah?”
The prisoner prepares to respond sincerely, not noticing that the notary has become tense, as he is about to hear the blasphemy the tribunal needs to unleash its accusatory cannons.
“Miracles are not enough, or even necessary, to demonstrate the presence of God,” Francisco responds, as if he were musing on some trivial theme. “Let us recall that a miracle implies the violation of the universe’s laws. Miracles refute and break the natural order.”
“Weren’t there miracles in the Old Testament?” Castro del Castillo says, with irony.
“Yes, there were, of course there were—only not to prove the existence of God, but to address extreme needs. The Red Sea parted to save Israel from the Egyptian army, manna fell from the sky and water sprang from rock so that those who’d just been freed wouldn’t die of hunger or thirst. None of these miracles were about making people believe. Those who are experts at magic can also perform miracles. The prophets, for example, talked, persuaded, and recriminated using words alone. Those who demand miracles in order to believe”—he is silent for an instant, stunned by the incredible metamorphosis that’s taken place, because all of a sudden he, an accused wretch, is in the role of accuser—“those who demand miracles to believe indirectly undermine the laws of the Lord, the laws with which He created the world and set it in motion.”
The edges of Gaitán’s lips stretch into a horrible grimace. Still, he is pleased; the captive has said enough to deserve a thunderous punishment.
Mañozca adds a biting detail. “We have found, among your clothes, a notebook containing the feast days of Moses and a few prayers.”
“Yes,” Francisco admits. “My father taught them to me.”
“That is enough. The hearing is over.”
As the prisoner is taken away to endure weeks of isolation, Mañozca thinks: Is it not a sign of madness for an isolated, helpless, unprotected man to try to resist the formidable machine of the Holy Office? How can he keep holding his head so high before an institution brimming with jails, torture devices, officials, money, prestige, and impenetrable secrets? It is the most feared organization in all the Viceroyalty, in all the empire, in all the Christian world. Its goal is to stamp out insubordination, and it does so without hesitation. It spares no resources of any kind, be they material or spiritual, using any and all instruments of intrigue, slander, and panic. The Holy Office mobilizes hundreds of feet and thousands of arms, but has only one brain, armored to the point where it feels nothing. It is not moved by people’s despair because it is not with the people, but with God. It works only for Him. Anyone who faces the Holy Office is facing the Almighty. This prisoner, therefore, seems unreal, seems a nightmarish hallucination. He is a being who must be thoroughly humiliated. He must be brought down, shaken, until he accepts the purification that will save his soul.
The inquisitors and their helpers draft an extremely detailed accusation against Francisco. It is fifty-five chapters long, and includes ample outside input. They presume that isolation, darkness, and meager rations will have softened his hard-headedness. And so they summon him again. He is brought to the room with the ornate ceiling. They make him stay on his feet so that exhaustion can add another dose of suffering.
He is ordered, again, as is the custom, to swear on the cross, which may seem like a useless repetition. But the tribunal wants to know whether the prisoner has abandoned his stubbornness in the meditative capsule of his cell. Lamentably, the prisoner is a reptile who still
insists on swearing on the God of Israel. Then the notary conducts a monotonous reading of the accusation. After each point he interrogates the captive with his gaze, to confirm his agreement with the contents.
The judges shiver—with indignation, with surprise—when this monstrous being does not consider these fifty-five roars of thunder enough, but, rather, adds another insolence: he informs them that, during his quiet days in jail, he composed, in his mind, several prayers in Latin verse and a story in honor of the Eternal One’s law. He also tells them that, last September, he fulfilled the fast of Yom Kippur so that his errors may be forgiven.
This fly, this piece of trash they will send to twist and turn in the flames, shows no signs whatsoever of remorse! Nevertheless, it is announced that the laws governing such proceedings require them to offer him lawyers to work on his defense.
“Who assigns them?” Francisco allows himself to say, with irony.
They do not answer. The hearing is over. The prisoner is still speaking: let them be erudite people, and attentive.
Castro del Castillo, standing before his ecclesiastical chair, notices that the notary is writing down this request.
The prisoner adds, “So they can know how to clarify my doubts.”
Against the Inquisition Page 45