Against the Inquisition Read online

  “You know him?”

  “We met years ago. And someone who’s also traveling in this caravan will be very happy to speak with you.”

  40

  After crossing the salt flats, they stopped at a relatively welcoming spot, where bald trees offered a simulacrum of shade. The habitual wagon circle was created, the mule herds were enclosed in a corral, the servants set about grilling meat from a just-slaughtered cow.

  María Elena led her daughters to the brush where the women gathered. Lorenzo wanted to stretch his limbs by climbing trees, and Sevilla took advantage of the moment to take Francisco’s arm and introduce him to his Portuguese friend.

  He was near the campfire; a man of medium height. He wore a flowing gray shirt and wide linen trousers; a shiny belt held his leather bag and a sheathed knife. A thick silver cross hung from his neck. His face had a vigor to it, with thick eyebrows muffling the impact of his wide, penetrating eyes. His upturned nose, however, gave his round head a friendly look.

  “Here he is,” Sevilla said.

  “I’m happy to meet you,” said the man before turning back to the servant who was grilling his meat. “I told you to take those tumors off.”

  The servant grasped the edge of the beef with his hand, right over the coals, almost burning himself, and carefully sliced away the swollen parts and ganglions.

  “They don’t realize that it tastes better without those disgusting bits.”

  He moved away from the people who were coming to claim their portions. Sevilla and Francisco followed him. After checking to confirm that nobody could hear them, he began to speak.

  “So you’re the youngest son of Diego Núñez da Silva?”

  “Yes. And you—who are you?”

  “Who am I?” His teeth showed in a bitter smile. “I’m Diego López. And as I come from Lisbon, they call me Diego López de Lisboa.”

  “My father was also born in Lisbon.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “More than you’d imagine,” Sevilla put in.

  Francisco directed a questioning gaze his way.

  “You want to know?” Diego López asked, picking up a dry stick.

  Francisco nodded.

  “Your father and I”—he stared at him intently, seeming to doubt for an instant—“we met over there, in Lisbon.”

  “In Lisbon?”

  He stirred dead leaves with his stick as if he preferred that over stirring memories.

  “Then—” Francisco stammered.

  Sevilla shook his head. “It’s useless,” he sighed. “My friend prefers to forget.”

  “I prefer?” López shot back. “You think I prefer it? Or do I have to do it?”

  “We’ve talked about this. Many times.”

  “But you’re still not convinced.”

  “Memory isn’t erased by will alone.”

  “But one must will oneself to erase it.”

  “Have you been able to do that?”

  López broke the stick and looked up at the sky. “God help me!”

  “You see?” Sevilla softened his tone. “On that path, you’ll never reach the port.”

  “And yet, it is the best path. If only the alchemists could discover the filter of amnesia. Then one could choose it.”

  “I return to my thesis: you prefer to forget, but you don’t forget, because if you did you would not be the same person.”

  Francisco listened to them. Sensing the pain and fear behind their words he strained to decipher the hidden meaning of their strange debate.

  “My opinion is so different,” Sevilla said, “that before leaving I finished my tenth chronicle.”

  “Congratulations!” López exclaimed ironically. “I hope those chronicles don’t bring you tragedy.”

  “Everything that happens to us deserves to endure.” He turned to Francisco. “Writing chronicles, I learned history. History is one of the oldest sciences. The Greeks invented a special muse in its honor. History breathes with meaning and value. I love it.”

  “History is a useless burden. Worse—a deadly burden,” López growled.

  They returned to the campfire, unsheathed their knives, and took good pieces of meat. They chose a large loaf of bread and a wineskin and then retreated to the shade.

  41

  Young Francisco found himself in an incredible tunnel of time on a trajectory brimming with bewilderment. Although he was eighteen years old, he felt much older. He recalled that in the courtyard of orange trees, now faded in his memory, he’d been told about an Arab book called One Thousand and One Nights that consisted of a series of stories told by a woman to a caliph in the course of a thousand nights. José Ignacio Sevilla and Diego López de Lisboa did something similar: in the course of fifteen siestas they evoked and discussed, in front of him, as if he were the privileged caliph, another succession of stories—their wounds, their unknown dignity, and their shrouded terror. They were part of a loose network of individuals in a permanent state of flight. They were irrigated by wretched blood and had to take great pains to win the respect of men. It was not enough to seem to be Christians; they had to erase the impurity of their origins. But, what were these origins, which were so execrable?

  “Our origins are not only Spanish. They are Spanish and Jewish. The term ‘Jewish’ is a sign of evil,” López said.

  Francisco felt the vertigo that was driving those men mad. A mix of hatred, love, and guilt. Spanish Jews—a group to which he, too, belonged—were considered criminals. He opened his ears wide to drink in an utterly sad story: that of Spain’s Jewish people. Sevilla, despite everything, loved the story. López de Lisboa abhorred it.

  Once upon a time, the Jews arrived in Spain in King Solomon’s ships and baptized the new nation Sefarad, which in Hebrew means “land of the end,” or “land of rabbits.” They planted Biblical sprouts: vines of grapes, trees of olive, fig, and pomegranate. Spain offered them a replica of the land they carried in their spirits; the rivers evoked the Jordan, the high mountains recalled snowy Mount Hermon, and the plains bore resemblance to the desert of the prophets. They lived in peace alongside the natives, and when Christianity became established, there were no confrontations; seeds were gathered the same way with Hebrew or Latin blessings. The blessedness of those centuries was intruded upon by the Third Council of Toledo, which unleashed a general anti-Jewish offensive, prohibiting mixed marriages, and if such unions did result in offspring, it was required that those children be taken to the baptismal bowl. Jews could no longer hold public roles, and they couldn’t bury their dead intoning psalms that the neighbors could hear.

  Nevertheless, the tolerant disposition of the people predominated over the severity of priests. The Visigoth kings’ allegiances swung arbitrarily—some honored, others persecuted. One of them, for example, declared that the Jews of Spain were slaves in perpetuity.

  In the year 711, a small Arab army successfully crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and in a few years almost the entire peninsula became dependent on the splendid caliphate of Córdoba. The capital city turned magnificent; its court drew philosophers, poets, physicians, and mathematicians. Parks sprang up with tranquil ponds and palaces full of fountains. For three centuries there reigned an atmosphere of fellowship. In that era, Jewish princes appeared in Spain.

  “Jewish princes?” stammered Francisco. He couldn’t believe it.

  The first Jewish prince of Spain was called Hasdai. Many families claim to belong to his lineage, including those with the last name of Silva. The Silvas came from Córdoba, and surely from Hasdai. (Francisco thought of the rusted iron key.) The brilliant Hasdai lived just before the first millennium. He spoke fluent Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin, and was a doctor and a diplomat. The emperor of Germany declared that he had never met a keener man. The emperor of Byzantium, for his part, sent him precious gifts, among them a book by Dioscorides, whom Pliny quotes, and whose works form the foundations of pharmacology. Hasdai rendered the text into Ara
bic. Throughout the caliphate, the study of the healing powers of herbs came to flourish. To this must be added the portentous discovery made thanks to Hasdai’s ties to the Byzantine court: in the Orient, a Jewish kingdom had formed, the first independent Jewish kingdom since the catastrophe caused by the Roman legions. Its very existence proved that there was no eternal curse against Israel. Hasdai sent several missions, a few of which succeeded in striking up the desired ties.

  Later on, when the caliphate fractured into a mosaic of small kingdoms, another Hasdai arose—Samuel Hanaguid. Hanaguid means “the prince.” He was also born in Córdoba, and with him, too, many families—including the Silvas—came from his lineage. He had mastered mathematics and philosophy and could speak and write seven languages. The vizier of Granada solicited his services, made him his secretary, and, years later on his deathbed, chose him to take his own place. It was the highest role a Jew had ever achieved in the palace of Alhambra. He governed for thirty years, built a vast library, and took the time to teach at a respected university.

  In Córdoba, where the Silvas came from, there was also born a prince who did not only belong to a single state, but to humanity—Maimonides. He was the greatest of the philosophers of his time, and the doctors of the church bowed before him.

  “A Jew before whom the church doctors bowed!” Sevilla declared.

  He was named Aquila Magna, Doctor Fidelis, et Gloria Orientalis et Lux Occidentalis. Without him, there would have been no Saint Thomas of Aquinas, or his Summa Theologica. He was the Saladin’s personal doctor, as well as the physician requested by Richard the Lionheart. Those were wondrous times. Unfortunately, the quarrels between Muslim kingdoms grew, and hordes of fanatics arose. A preacher declared that the Jews had promised Mohammed that, if at the end of the fifth century after the Hegira the Messiah had not yet arrived, they would convert to Islam. The zealot addressed Jewish communities, exhorting them to keep their ancestors’ vow. The Muslims couldn’t tolerate the Jews’ survival, despite the positive fruits of their past coexistence.

  Meanwhile, what was happening in the Christian kingdoms north of Spain?

  “When the Islamic persecutions began, the Jews were displaced to the Christian kingdoms to the north, logically, just as they had fled from them before,” Sevilla said.

  “No refuge on Earth is final,” sighed López de Lisboa, his round eyes emanating sadness. “Refuges are transitory. Worse—they’re illusions. The solution is to abandon the refuge.”

  Sevilla and Francisco sensed that mournful words were coming.

  “To abandon the refuge—” he cleared his throat. “The solution, then, does exist. It’s to stop being a Jew. Permanently.”

  42

  The trek to the north continued toward Santiago de Estero. Then they would travel through beautiful Ibatín. Francisco recognized this route, which he had traveled nine years before as a sheltered, happy child.

  He gazed at Sevilla’s little daughters, dozing against their young mother, and saw them as just as sheltered and happy as he had been on his last wagon journey. That is to say: precariously sheltered. They did not know that their father was a secret Jew, a man who could be arrested and burned alive. If that happened, they would lose all protection as well as their resources, because the Inquisition would confiscate all the family’s money and belongings.

  He breathed deeply to undo his unease. Was it the right thing to tell one’s own family the truth? His father had not told his mother that he was Jewish. Of course, if he had done so, Aldonza might not have agreed to marry him. Then he would have been condemned to solitude, to suffer all the more intensely as a cursed man.

  His father’s marriage, and Sevilla’s as well, were paradoxically mixed marriages—between Christians—New Christians who married Old Christians. At the time of betrothal, only one half of the couple knew the entire truth; the other was deceived, or opted to deny reality with the hope that it might not result in misfortune. Mutual consent was therefore impossible; in reality, it was two men marrying one woman.

  Was there no solution? Diego López de Lisboa, sick of suffering, found the only one, a terrible one: “Stop being Jewish. Permanently.” Francisco thought that if his father had opted for that logical path when he’d disembarked in the Americas, he would not have maintained his mistaken beliefs and would not have been arrested. He, Francisco, would have been able to enjoy the presence of his whole family. Perhaps his mother would not have died so young. They would not have lost their possessions, and would not have had to submit to the denigrating custody of Brother Bartolomé. He, Francisco, would not now be traveling to Lima.

  From the time that his father had founded his eccentric academy, he had insisted that knowledge was power. He had a great deal of knowledge and had read more books than many of the know-it-alls of the Viceroyalty. Nevertheless, at the crucial moment when it mattered most, his knowledge had not served him. Nobody even recognized its power.

  As Francisco considered these thoughts, the face of Jesus rose in his mind’s eye. He relaxed his back against the wagon’s beams and murmured portions of the catechism. An idea strained to emerge, but he crushed it with others, until it burst open. There was a parallel between Jesus and his father! Jesus was God; he had all the power. But the soldiers of Rome did not believe him, and mocked him, demanding that he prove it. Christ stayed silent, like his father. They beat him, pushed him, insulted him. Where was his dignity hiding—where were his lightning bolts, where was his strength? If he was capable of destroying and rebuilding the temple in three days, why didn’t he expel his tormentors with a single breath? He was nothing more than a weak man. And the villains took advantage of the moment to beat him and have fun at his expense. They did not see that, behind his weakness, there hid an infinite force. They did not see that the pain was only making him more beloved in the eyes of the Father.

  Francisco covered his face, shaking his head in horror. He had to be alone, somehow, in the midst of the wagon. Such confusion! Might the pain of the Jews, profound as it had been throughout the course of time, be a mysterious virtue that could make them immortal? Might Judaism be a way of imitating and realizing the Passion of Christ?

  43

  The Indian José Yaru, hired by José Ignacio Sevilla in Cuzco, behaved like the other carriers of loads, but his face and certain attitudes suggested a subtle difference. Just like the others he was obedient and silent, moving like a ghost. He could stand close behind someone and follow him for a long time without being noticed, or could disappear for long stretches. Once, the caravan left without him but he reappeared at their next stop. When he was asked about this, his answers were so laconic and evasive that it made the speaker want to stop talking to him. His facial features suggested tension, a deep tension that he hid with a guise of indolence and stupidity.

  The Indian load carriers were not slaves, though they seemed to be such. Their work was hard and poorly compensated. Like the others, he followed the caravan on foot, slept under the open sky, and maintained a prudent distance from the Spaniards and the enslaved black people. He was not bothered by shouts or reproach; this was the natural way of receiving instructions, the treatment appropriate to his station. Was he resigned forever? He came from the heights of Cuzco. There, the Incas had reigned, touching the clouds. Cuzco had been the capital of a vast empire, the magnetic core to which the territories flowed that later would form the Viceroyalty of Peru. The great Inca was a child of the sun and, as with that great star, he could not be looked at directly. His reign was short and intense. The Indians trembled upon hearing of him. José, however, on being asked what he thought about the Incan Empire, about the people and customs of the Incas, invariably responded, “I do not think.”

  Sevilla knew that one of José’s brothers had become a talented painter of churches. He reproduced the punishments the Jews had inflicted on the Lord Jesus Christ. But the Jews wore Spanish clothes, and on various occasions he had painted them with a gold cross on their chests. Sevilla als
o knew of an aunt who had been condemned as a sorceress because she had hidden idols and fed them chicha, a corn drink, and corn flour.

  José Ignacio Sevilla met José Yaru right there in Cuzco. He had hired him to carry his packages from one store to another through the alley of the merchants. He was reliable and efficient. When Sevilla ended their contract because he was returning to Buenos Aires, the Indian lowered his hard head, clasped his hands over his belly, and asked point-blank to be taken with him.

  “Why?” Sevilla asked in surprise.

  “Because of a family war.”

  “You want to flee?”

  “I have a family war.”

  Sevilla could not pry any more information out of him. What did “family war” mean? Was his father-in-law persecuting him? Did a brother-in-law want to kill him? Had he committed bigamy? Had his relatives spurned him? He needed to escape. Sevilla took pity on José and also calculated that in granting this favor, he would be gaining a good helper. He was taking responsibility for a fugitive, certainly; but he was not fleeing because of the religion, which would be a serious matter, but rather because of theft, murder, or adultery. Sevilla knew he might never know the truth. He tried to see into the man’s stubborn mind. As he found no weighty obstacles, Sevilla assented.

  José Yaru never removed his leather bracelets. Every once in a while he intoned a funereal song. His melody was like a ribbon undulating toward some mountain.

  “I’m nostalgic for the heights,” he would say by way of explanation.

  The other Indians would listen to him in silence. During breaks, circles of load carriers would form. Though José was the same as the rest of them, he seemed to become the center of the group, as though he bore a dignity that only his brothers recognized.

  44

  Diego López de Lisboa was traveling in a different wagon and was not accompanied by his family this time. He had four brilliant children, one of whom, Antonio, excelled at writing in secret codes.