The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzmán

by Louis de Bernières

  I hug you and my arms embrace a nothing. I look in your eyes and they have no colours, they are dreaming. I kiss your lips and they have no response, like the lips of a man gone mad and disappearing in the jungle of his broken soul. Your mind is in fragments like the shards of huacos in a mountain tomb, I say, ‘Federico, Federico, where are you? Speak,’ and you blink and stand like an animal lanced with curare, and I do not hear even a sigh, and suddenly I think, ‘Parlanchina, you have stopped existing when Federico’s eyes have dimmed,’ and Papa says, ‘Be happy, Federico is being reborn,’ and that is all nothing for me, for your child has no father and I am undone. I am shredded by memories, I am empress of grey seas of mourning, I shall weep rivers until the gods hear me and for fear of drowning grant my request.

  52 In Conspectu Tormentorum

  SIBILA DID NOT want to leave. She pulled one of those comical faces of hers and said, ‘But I have done nothing bad, and anyway, they are not the police.’ At that point I realised that I should go to the mayor and persuade him to call the militia on the telephone. I went to the alcaldia, and there was a group of people outside it who had all had the same idea. Outside the building the severed wire of our one telephone hung down the boards, and inside there were screams. It seems that the mayor had attempted to arrest the legate, had been seized by the bodyguard, and was being questioned about his orthodoxy. His father had been a Syrian, and he did not have a chance. He was flayed alive and left to bleed to death in the sun as a example to us all. It was said he would not denounce anyone else. His corpse was the most horrible thing I had ever seen up to that time.

  On the Tuesday we all had to go to church and listen to the list of heresies all over again, and we were made to swear the same oath to support the Holy Office. Our priest was not allowed to say the mass, and instead it was said by one Father Valentino, a man with the face of a simpleton. We were invited to denounce the heretics known to us, and told to go to our houses to await our individual summons; they had taken the list of inhabitants from the offices of the mayor where he kept them for the purposes of the census.

  The town was crawling with priests and bodyguards, so it was difficult to walk about without being stopped and questioned. Many people went into their front doors and out of their houses by the back windows. I watched Sofia do precisely that from my own window, and run off into the trees. I do not think that she was caught, but I know of one woman who was raped to death by the bodyguard when they found her in a barn. I was too scared to flee, and I sat in my house waiting for the knock.

  My name comes late in the alphabet, and so I was not to be interviewed for some time. I could not sit still, and I began to prepare a meal, as though I could delude myself that everything was normal.

  There was a knock on my door after sunset, and I assumed it to be the Holy Office. Trembling and terrified I looked through the cracks in the planks and saw that it was our priest, Father Belibasta. He was not a good man, in the sense that he had a concubine and two children, but he was a good man in the sense that he had an unblemished soul. I was relieved, and I let him in.

  He was plainly frightened, more even than I was, and he said he had seen terrible things, and that I must hurry. I said, ‘What things?’ but he would not explain in detail. He said that people were admitting to things that they had not done, and were accusing each other likewise. He sat on my truckle bed with tears streaming down his cheeks, and he told me that he had seen such horrors as had never been seen. I will not tell you the names, because they will mean nothing to you, but for example he told me that one man had denounced himself for using contraceptives. Another had denounced his best friend for urinating against the church wall when he was drunk. A woman made a delation against her husband, saying that he had made her cook meat and onions on a Friday, and the husband said that she had once observed that St Maria Corelli must have been very stupid. Someone else was accused of saying, during a game of tejo, ‘You will not win this game, even if God were on your side.’ It seemed that neighbours were turned against neighbours, families against their own members, because they were being told that it was not enough to denounce oneself when fully cognisant of others who deserved to be arraigned. Father Belibasta said that statements were being extracted by force, and he asked, ‘Where is La Perfecta?’

  ‘Sibila is in her house,’ I replied.

  ‘Almost everyone has denounced her and yourself,’ said the priest. ‘With all that talk about angels and diabolical creation, it was inevitable. You must go to her and try to get out of this place. Please do not tell me where you will go, because my turn will come perhaps. I am going to try to gather my flock and lead them to a place of safety.’

  I knelt before him and I asked, ‘Pray to God to lead me to a good end.’ I do not know why I said those words, but they came of their own accord into my head.

  ‘God bless you, and make you a good Christian, and lead you to a good end,’ he said, and he laid his hand on my head.

  I have never felt so courageous, and it was love that did it. I was like a bird who hops within reach of an ocelot to lead it away from her chicks. I climbed out of the window at the back, and I circled the entire village in order to go behind Sibila’s house. I was as stealthy and assured as a jaguar, and I forgot my crippled leg. It carried me as though it were healthy. I even stole a rifle from the side of a sleeping bodyguard, and I broke his head with the butt of it, I was so full of strength.

  I tapped on Sibila’s shutter, and at first she refused to come. But I begged her, and I told her to gather all the food in the house. There was a terrible shriek that floated out over the darkness, and that persuaded her. We went to live in the caves where we used to go and eat picnics on hot afternoons.

  During that week I came to know her even more intimately. At night it grew very cold, and we used to sleep wrapped up in each other’s arms, fully clothed, to keep warm. I can still smell her hair and feel the slenderness of her limbs. I was so happy. During the day we would look for wild fruit, and we would talk and talk until we lost our voices with laughing. I told her things about myself that I have told no one, and she told me all about every man she had ever loved. We made up stupid songs and sang them in rounds, tirelessly. I honestly believe that we would eventually have become lovers. I would look into her face and see her candidly gazing back, and that is how I know. I also know that she was an angel who was daily breaking further from her imprisonment.

  I was growing accustomed to my newfound bravery, and every night I would creep back down to the village to see whether the barbarians were still there. I saw horrible things, even in the dark, because by night they continued the work of the day by the light of torches and vehicles. Many people were hanged. I heard the sound of pleading and wailing. I saw Gil. He was saying, ‘I am innocent, I am not a homosexual,’ but they castrated him and stoned him whilst he was tied to a post. I know that Gil was not homosexual, because he used to borrow money to go to the whorehouse. Who could have accused him? Guiralda, whose husband had died, leaving her pregnant, was thrown down the well, like Patarino.

  Because my nose is slit and because I have lash marks all over my body, you will have guessed that I was caught. I was taken from behind by three men, one night as I was watching through the leaves. I could not run from them because of my leg, and when they grabbed me all my strength left my body, and I was like a child. They said, ‘Ay, this is the cripple,’ and they took me straight to the church.

  In the church El Inocente was sitting behind a long table, looking more like a vulture than ever. At first he was kind to me. He pointed to the priest who had said the mass and told me, ‘Father Valentino will defend you in this court. Did you know that you have been denounced, and that is why we have brought you here?’

  I played dumb, and said, ‘No, Your Grace. Who has denounced me?’

  ‘We do not reveal the names of witnesses, to spare them from reprisals after we have gone.’

  ‘Of what am I accused, Your Grace?’

/>   ‘If we tell you that, then you may guess who has accused you. We require you to search your conscience. Were you at the Edict of Grace?’

  I nodded, and he said, ‘Then you have sworn a Holy Oath to help us. What do you have to confess?’

  I searched in my mind for small offences, and I said, ‘I do not often go to mass, and from time to time I have doubted that God becomes bread.’

  This was noted down by another priest, and El Inocente asked, ‘And do you have a confession in caput alienum?’

  I asked him to repeat the question, and he explained that I should confess the evil I knew of others. I had a brainwave, and I named him some people who had already died and were out of harm’s way. I said, ‘These people went to candombles, and practised santeria, but now they are dead.’

  ‘And are they buried here?’

  I nodded again, and the list of names was handed to one of the bodyguard, who went out with it. ‘You have more to confess, do you not?’ asked the Monsignor, and I replied, ‘No, Your Grace.’

  ‘Put him in conspectu tormentorum,’ said the vulture, and Father Valentino took me by the arm and led me into the room of the church where the priest robes himself. In there I saw whips and instruments made of iron, and a system of pulleys mounted upon a hook in one of the joists. I said to the priest, ‘How will you defend me?’ and he replied, ‘There are four forms of defence. In the first place you can prove that witnesses are accusing you out of malice.’

  ‘Who are the witnesses?’

  He shook his head and said, ‘It has already been explained that we cannot reveal the identity of witnesses. You may call favourable witnesses. You may plead extenuation, such as insanity, or you may resort to recusation, and that is something that I do not advise, under the circumstances.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Objecting to the judge. Do you see this? This is the garrucha, or strappado. You are hauled to the ceiling and then dropped; it greatly agonises the arms and shoulders. This is the toca; you are tied down, a cloth is put down your throat and water is poured over it which soaks down the cloth and fills your stomach. How much it hurts depends upon how much water is used. This is the potro; it is a system of ropes that are wound upon a crank, and which cut into the flesh and crush the bones. If you do not confess, you will suffer until we are convinced that you have told everything.’

  I went down on my knees and begged him. I said, ‘Father, tell me what I have to confess.’ He looked confused and fearful, which revealed to me that he was not a man like El Inocente, whose head was disconnected from his heart. He looked around to check that there was no one near, and he bent down to whisper, ‘La Perfecta.’

  I had already guessed that they wanted Sibila. My heart sank to my belly, and my head dropped to my chest. I looked at the instruments of torture, and I remembered the screaming I had heard, the flaying of the mayor and the castration of Gil.

  In my life I had often thought about this kind of situation, wondering what I would do. From time to time I have toyed with the idea that I would be heroic and hold out until the end. But now I made excuses to myself. I said, ‘I would be no worse than whoever it was who denounced me. What is the use of being hanged like the others?’ I asked Father Valentino, ‘What happens if I make full confession?’

  ‘You will be spared,’ he said. ‘There will be punishment, but you will, if you abjure, be reconciled to the faith.’

  ‘And Sibila? Will she be spared?’

  He smiled at me indulgently and replied, ‘When she confesses her errors, she will be spared.’

  It was that statement that made up my mind. I reasoned that Sibila would confess and pretend to repent, as I was about to do. I thought that she would understand my cowardice and learn to forgive me, because she would realise that in my position she would have done the same. I went back to El Inocente and told him exactly where she was.

  But I was not spared in the manner I had expected. In the morning there was an auto de fe, and El Inocente appeared dressed in purple for it. There were many there who were to be sentenced, and I was the last. It was hard to recognise many of my friends because of their mistreatment, and I felt ashamed that I was unharmed. Every one of us had all our property confiscated and given over to the Holy Office. I was taken to my house and they made an inventory of all my meagre possessions, down to the last spoon. They loaded the entire wealth of the village into carts and trucks, because they had found a heresy in every single person. The people who had confessed reluctantly had their eyes put out by the bodyguard, and they were tied to Father Belibasta by a rope. His eyes were left in his head, and he was told to lead them away through the country as a warning to others.

  As for me, I was penanced. I was put on a burro and flogged through the streets. The people were supposed to throw stones at me. They were ordered to do so by the bodyguard, but no stones touched me. When we returned to the front of the church, one of the bodyguard took a knife and slit my nose. I am not telling you about what I suffered, because I cannot describe it and I cannot talk about it, and I cannot reconcile myself to it. Except that now I see justice in it if I think of it as my punishment for betraying Sibila.

  When I was untied from the donkey, and I had been lifted from the ground where I had fallen, I was surrounded by the priests. They put on me the sanbenito, which is the shirt with a yellow cross on the back and front, and I was told to wear it all my life. I was told to go barefoot all my days, and I was forbidden to touch anyone. They gave me a wooden palette for shopkeepers to put my purchases on. Blood soaked into my shirt and it ran down my legs. I thought that I was going to die, and my stomach felt as though it had caved in.

  The Monsignor came forward and smiled at me benignly. He asked me, ‘What faith do you embrace?’ and I replied, ‘The faith of Jesus Christ.’

  He turned to the other priests and told them to rejoice. I swear there were tears of happiness in his eyes. He put his hands on my shoulders, said, ‘Thanks be to God,’ and kissed me on both cheeks.

  53 The Mexican Musicologist Recalls The Building Of The Wall

  I HAVE LIVED here for some time now, and I never cease to be intrigued and amazed; the mania for construction seems never to abate, and this in a people naturally inclined to idleness and profligacy. The construction of the wall came about at the time when I had been down on the plateau and caught red beasts. They crawl up one’s trouser legs and burrow under the skin. Lucky is the man whose waistband is tight from prosperity or shrinkage, because then they stop and the upper body is spared. I had terrible sore spots that drove me crazy with itching, and I fell out with Ena and Lena because I thought that one of them had been unfaithful and come down with the pox. I went to Aurelio in high indignation, and he told me to block up the breathing holes with grease, and sure enough they died and I had an allergic reaction to the corpses and itched even worse. I went back to Aurelio and he said I should be grateful it was not warble fly, which reminds me that not long ago one of the horses got kicked in the eye and it went bad. Before long it was a mass of gruesomely writhing maggots and I believed the stallion would die, but Sergio removed the eyeball and cleaned out the socket with alcohol, and everything was fine except that the horse kept walking in circles for lack of vision on one side. Dionisio said, ‘Never mind,’ and he found a grey pebble and painted an eye on it with white paint. He put it in the socket and now the horse walks straight – how do you explain that? – but the eye appears most disconcerting when you see the horse like that.

  Don Emmanuel bought the stallion and one day he rode up the hill on it and gave me a piece of paper, saying that it had a rare English Christmas song on it, and perhaps I would be interested in collecting it? It was very long because it increases by one line at a time for each stanza, and it is called ‘The Twelve Days Of Christmas’. I give the last verse here:

  ‘On the twelfth day of Christmas my truelove sent to me twelve twats a-twitching, eleven leaping lesbians, ten torn-off testicles, nine gnawed-off nipples
, eight aching arseholes, seven convicted vicars, five choirboys. Four fornicators, three French whores, two shithouse doors, and my Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.’

  Don Emmanuel sang it to me most tenderly in a fine baritone, and I confess I was extremely moved, saying, ‘You should have sung it to the British Ambassador when he was here.’ I do not understand the words because of the poverty of my English, but I have sent it to my agent in Mexico along with a transcription of the melody, with the hope that it might be incorporated in a forthcoming anthology of international traditional songs whose profits will go to UNICEF. Don Emmanuel is sometimes a most embarrassing man, but this time he has come up with something very marvellous. He has had another falling-out with Felicidad, and the town has been talking of nothing else. I wish they could conduct their affairs as blissfully as Capitan Papagato and Francesca; she has fallen pregnant again and is already beginning to waddle rather than walk. Everyone is surprised because she was still breastfeeding the first. I understand that their jaguars are having more kittens. Soon we will be overrun. I have had to reinforce the roof of my house because Lena says that the weight of the cats sunbathing at noon will otherwise cause it one day to collapse.

  I was putting the finishing touches to the new beams and humming a tune that Dionisio taught me when General Fuerte arrived and kissed the hands of Ena and Lena like a true old-fashioned gentleman. Then he came to me and said, ‘We might need your help,’ and I said, ‘Why? Has the three-hundred-year-old man come back and assaulted someone? Has the Conde finally split someone’s nose? Has Felicidad broken a plate over Don Emmanuel’s head? Has someone eaten a Pollo de un Hombre Verdadero at Dolores’ restaurant?’ And the General said, ‘No, guess again.’