Mexico: A Novel Part 22

'The only group sending out first-cla.s.s men"-the words sounded so impressive in Spanish: hombres de la primera categoria-"is die Church. When you get to Mexico, Antonio, you'll find you're smarter and more dedicated than the men you have to deal with. Therefore be shrewd. See to it that the land gets a good government."

"In such matters what can a priest do?" Antonio asked.

The old general poked the young priest in the ribs and winked at his secretary. "What can a priest do!" the marquis teased. "When I was in charge of high-spirited troops ... I hated to see priests come along because I knew they would try to discipline my men. Well, that's wine that's been drunk. But have you noticed, Fray Tomas, how every time on this trip we mention building new cities this young priest's eyes light up like candles? What are you dreaming, Antonio? Are you going to build one long city across Mexico?"

"I am dreaming mostly of souls, now in darkness," Antonio replied.

"Yesterday, when our carriage was bogged down, I was most impressed by the practical way you found stones as a fulcrum for our levers." Almost unconsciously, the older soldier slipped into using the familiar form of the Spanish tu and from this time on Guadalquivir spoke to the young priest as if he were his son.

"I have no sons," the marquis observed at one point, "and that's a pity, for I possess a name worthy of perpetuation. I do have daughters, and they're providing grandsons, so all's well."

As they approached Cordoba, that burnished jewel of Muhammadan power in Spain, the old marquis observed, "Always remember this city as an example of how Spain governs. We fought the Moors in Cordoba for six hundred years. When we conquered them we preserved their city, their mosques, their language, their cooking. And the more of their life we absorbed, the stronger we became. In Mexico we must do the same."

The old man spoke so forcefully on this somewhat unusual theme that Fray Antonio asked, "In the conquest of the Moors did you experience something-"

The general put his right hand on the priest's knee and said, "At the conquest of Granada . . . , at the moment of victory ..." He hesitated. "There was an insolent young Moor who had fought against us . . . very brave . . ." Again he paused. Twice he tried to continue his narration and twice he choked. Finally he managed to finish his account.

"A man does many things he regrets, priest. Those that involve women he's able in time to forget, because men were made to war with women and that's part of the fun of life. But the abuses he commits on other men haunt him. The older he grows, the more they haunt him."

"What did you do to the young Moor?" Antonio asked.

"When we captured him, I had him garroted," the general replied. "And ever since, I have wondered what this young leader might have accomplished in Spain. When we wanted to appoint a Muslim to govern the regions outside Granada, where was he? Where was this fiery, brave young man?"

The old general rubbed his hands, as if washing them and thereby erasing his memories.

Together the marquis and the priest hiked about the former imperial city of the Arabs, now a somnolent minor capital of the Spaniards, and as they progressed through the narrow streets the marquis pointed out hundreds of Moorish relics of a type not known in northern cities like Salamanca.

"One of the reasons why we rule the world," the marquis reflected, "is that we absorb the best from everybody we conquer, yet we remain Spanish."

"I should think that our grandeur came rather from our love of G.o.d and His Holy Church," Antonio said simply.

Guadalquivir stared at the priest, then growled, "Maybe you're right."

At last the caravan re-formed for the five-day march into Seville, and on the evening of the final encampment Antonio said, "I shall deplore seeing the end of our pilgrimage."

"Good trip," the old man grunted, as if to dismiss the subject.

But Antonio, finding in the general the kind of solid human being that his father was, was reluctant to have their a.s.sociation end so abruptly, and added, "Riding with you, sir, has been like talking with my father again."

The marquis replied, "None of my daughters has the least understanding of what we've been talking about." Once more he spoke with such finality that the conversation seemed ended.

But again Antonio tried to reopen it: "I hope that when I reach Mexico I'll be able to accomplish some of the things you spoke of"

"You'll be lucky if you accomplish anything," the marquis growled, and since he rebuffed all efforts to maintain the conversation, Antonio watched the towers of Seville as they rose mysteriously across the flatlands that bordered the river Guadalquivir. The sight of one soaring tower that dominated the city tempted the old general to revert to his major theme: "It's a Moorish tower, the best in Spain. When our priests decided to build a cathedral, they stuck it at the foot of the Moorish tower, sprinkled holy water on it, and claimed it for their own. Sensible people."

When at last the caravan drew up at the edge of the pleasing plaza that stretched out from the foot of the Moorish tower, the captain of the troop rode up to the marquis's carriage, bowed and announced, "Sir, we are home," whereupon the pa.s.sengers alighted for Antonio's first glimpse of the richest city in the world.

He was fascinated by the enormous new cathedral, finished only five years before, and spent some time inspecting how it had been put together. At his elbow the marquis mumbled, "When the priests wished to commemorate Seville's redemption from the Moors they announced, 'We shall build a church so big that all who come after us will cry, 'They were insane." ' " From a door the two men looked down a nave of such astonishing length that it seemed to end not in some distant wall but in the shadows of faith, and Antonio whispered, "If a man is going to honor G.o.d, his monument should be of insane size." At this the marquis clapped him on the shoulder and muttered, "Poor Captain Cortos. Where will he find the money to pay for the follies you intend to commit?"

When the travelers had paid homage to the twin glories of Seville-the Moorish tower and its Christian cathedral-the attention of the marquis was directed to the huge wooden platform that filled one end of the plaza, and he growled, "What's that for?" Since he was one of the senior magistrates of the city, several attendants hurried up to whisper their replies, whereupon his face grew grave and he took Antonio by the arm.

"Back to the carriage," he said simply.

"I must recover my horse," the priest explained, "and find the Franciscan monastery."

"You're living with me," the marquis growled. "I have many horses." And he dragged the surprised young man into the carriage, pulling away the curtains so that Antonio could see the imposing plaza and the formidable stone wall through which they pa.s.sed into a quiet courtyard filled with orange trees. Footmen hurried to lake charge of the horses and to welcome the hero of Granada.

The quiet residence they had entered was an astonishment to the young priest from the north, for he had not yet seen the subtle grandeur of Moorish architecture as applied to private homes. If I describe in some detail what he saw on that May evening in 1524 I do so only because on a March evening in 1932 I stood in the same courtyard, under similar orange trees, and gazed at those arabesque walls, those Moorish arches, and those paneled ceilings whose traceries were as intricate and alien to my background as they were to Antonio's four centuries earlier.

The reception room was entered through arches of green-and-purple marble, across floors of rich orange tile, and past walls of shimmering black and white. The room itself was decorated with hundreds of thousands of minute tiles in many different colors, and the ma.s.sive stone fountain that filled the central area was carved from African marble in the shape of lions and desert serpents. Three windows, high in the wall, admitted light through the most delicate marble tracery that Antonio had ever seen, and there were a dozen -other ornate refinements.

"This isn't a house," the young priest whispered. "It's a mirage." Even more so was the young woman who now rushed in to greet her father.

"Leticia," the marquis mumbled gravely by way of introduction. "And this one is Fray Antonio Palafox, of Salamanca. He's heading for Mexico, and I wish I were going with him."

As a young man early dedicated to the priesthood, Antonio had never known much about girls, and Leticia's spirited entrance fl.u.s.tered him. As he watched her elfin pirouettes and the manner in which she tilted her head delightfully this way and that as she smiled at him, he felt dizzy. He was entranced by the way her silken dress accentuated the exquisite form of her body. But it was her smile, hesitant at times, then bubbling with warmth and enthusiasm that truly captivated him. He was in the presence of a girl destined to fill the dreams of young men, and although he had no realization of what was happening to him, she was instantly aware of her effect upon him. Despite her careful upbringing, she found pleasure in charming this young man, and the fact that he was a priest, and therefore a forbidden target for her wiles, she found to be an extra challenge. After greeting her father, she held out her hands toward Antonio and asked sweetly: "Do you wish to see the work so far completed in bur littie garden?" Antonio stammered: "I've already seen the garden," and he indicated the s.p.a.cious courtyard with the orange trees. Mocking him gently, she said, "I've heard that in the north houses have one garden. In Seville that wouldn't do," and she led both Antonio and her father into an inner garden luxuriant with flowers and pillars rescued from Roman cities that had existed in the southern seacoast cities of Spain long before the days of Christ. The architecture of the garden, however, was Moorish and of an intricacy that excelled anything Antonio had so far seen. Looking at the ancient pillars, he said to the marquis, 'This has a pagan quality."

"It is pagan," the marquis growled. He was about to expand on this when a knight arrived who bore a message from the governor.

"You and the priest intended for Mexico are invited to partic.i.p.ate in the ceremonies tomorrow," the messenger informed the marquis.

Apparently the ceremonies were involved with the structure in the plaza, for the general frowned and asked, "Is this a command?"

"Yes," the messenger replied.

"At what time?" Guadalquivir asked.

"The governor's party convenes at half after five in the morning," the knight replied and the general snapped, "Agreed," whereupon the messenger left.

"What are the ceremonies for?" Antonio asked.

Before the marquis could reply his daughter blurted: "They're going to burn the heretics tomorrow."

"Leticia!" the old man growled.

"Well, they are. Five were caught relapsing after previous conversions, and two Jews reject all overtures of the Church and say they will die in their own religion."

"Where do you hear such things?" the marquis asked.

"Father Tomas told me," she explained.

"You go in and see about dinner," the general suggested, and the somewhat hesitant manner in which he spoke indicated clearly that he was not at all sure that Leticia would obey, but this time she did, pa.s.sing close to the young priest and whispering, "You'll see I was right."

The two men walked up and down the lush garden, breathing in the powerful fragrance, and Antonio was fascinated by the Moorish tower that could be glimpsed through one of the archways in the wall. For some time they said nothing, but finally the marquis observed tentatively, "Very distressing ... what happens tomorrow."

He obviously felt constrained from speaking freely, so the young priest said cautiously, "You know, sir, I'm a Franciscan."

"I forgot," the general said, exhaling audibly. "May I speak freely?"

"About the heretics?"

"Are you apprehensive, too?" the soldier asked.

"It hasn't reached Salamanca yet ... the burning, that is," Antonio replied with extreme caution.

"It's necessary, you understand," Guadalquivir said, supporting the official line. "We've got to weed out the Jews."

"And the professing Muslims."

"And the followers of Luther."

"And all obvious enemies of the Church."

'This we admit," Guadalquivir said. "But when the burning started, it was not intended-"

"Whom are you speaking of now?" Antonio asked guardedly.

^ The general picked up a switch and struck his leg with it. "I'm just as willing as the next man to burn Jews," he announced firmly. "But . . ."

It was obvious that he had not the courage to finish the remark. While Father Antonio was considering how to divert the discussion to a new track, he noticed through the archway that a flock of swallows, perhaps three hundred or more, had started to descend on the Moorish tower, and he was captivated by the marvelous way in which they dipped and turned and seemed to ignore the tower until unpredictably they darted into their nests. He watched the birds for some minutes, and then observed abruptly, "You know, sir, that the job of rooting out heretics was given to the Dominicans, and it was intended that they restrict themselves to Jews and Moors. But in the last dozen years they've become much bolder." There was a painful silence, during which the last of the swallows flew home and night fell over Seville. In the darkness the priest added, "And when our church itself was about to ask the Holy Father to restrain the Dominicans, this new difficulty broke out with Martin Luther, and now the Dominicans have become more arrogant than ever."

Without looking at the priest, but with caution lest someone had entered the garden while they were talking, the marquis observed, 'Tomorrow, for the first time, they will burn Spaniards ... like you and me."

"How do you know?" Antonio asked.

"Messengers came to Cordoba. Two men that I know will burn. One fought with me in Granada."

"Can you do nothing?"

"Nothing," Guadalquivir said simply. "The judgment was to have been executed last week. I tried to escape by delaying my return. But the Dominicans demanded my presence-to give the thing public sanction-so they delayed."

"This time there are no Jews and Moors?" Antonio asked.

"Only Spaniards," the marquis replied. What later happened was to prove him wrong.

"Hallooo!" Leticia called from the interior of the house. Bearing a candle whose flickering light heightened her natural beauty, she came into the garden and announced, "The evening meal is ready, Father." But it was apparent that she was speaking not to her father but to the priest, for it was to him that she went with her candle, arousing in him a most unpriestly thought: She moves among those Roman pillars as if she were one of the vestal virgins I've read about. She's like those silvery swallows seeking her nightfall nest. This unfortunate imagery of Roman villas, virgins and her sleeping quarters became so powerful that night when he went to bed he could not sleep; he continued to see her, with her soft dress flowing behind her, and the night pa.s.sed in a torment that was as strange as it was intense.

At four in the morning, his eyes heavy with sleeplessness, he rose as was his custom to offer his Sunday prayers, and from the third floor of the Moorish palace he looked down on the wooden platform in the plaza, where workmen were busy arranging tall-backed chairs, each emblazoned with the seal of the Holy Inquisition, the colors somber in the light of flickering torches. Because of the gravity of this day, Antonio stayed at his prayers for nearly an hour and was found in that position by the servant who came at five to waken him.

In the next hurried hour the young priest dressed in his finest robes, was forced into eating a large breakfast because, as the marquis warned, 'Today there will be no food till nightfall," greeted Dona Leticia, who was apparently going to attend the ceremonies, and watched in the courtyard as the marquis mounted an Arabian horse and rode out in the predawn shadows to join the other n.o.bles of the countryside, whose presence was required to lend authority to the day's events.

At half past five the new bronze bells in the Moorish tower began tolling slowly, their reverberations summoning the thousands of spectators who would attend, each a.s.sured of forty days' plenary indulgence if he or she watched with care as the Church cleansed itself of heresy. At sunrise the huge plaza was jammed with families, most of whom had brought their children, who were encouraged to run back and forth to tire themselves out, so that during the blazing heat of midday they would sleep.

At six a small cannon was fired; the clanging bells increased their tempo; and from the huge wooden gates of the Alcazar, the Moorish fortress that stood not far from the cathedral, appeared the doleful procession of the forty-one who had been caught in one dereliction or another and had been found guilty by the judges of the Inquisition, against whose decision there was no appeal, neither to the king in Toledo nor to the pope in Rome. The first to appear in the march to the plaza of judgment were not the condemned but a group of city and church officials, accompanied by a troop of soldiers and four clerks of the Inquisition, who bore silver caskets covered with velvet and containing the list of offenses committed by the condemned. These were followed by eight Dominican friars, whose effect upon the public was electric, for each carried a long oak stave topped by a cl.u.s.ter of silver rings that jangled furiously when the friars hammered the staves against the cobbles, and it was this terrifying sound that prepared the way for the condemned.

The forty-one miserable prisoners had already been in solitary cells for periods of up to three years, awaiting trial, so that their complexions were pale and ghostly. Some, who had clung desperately to forbidden religions, were very old and walked with such infirmity that whatever worldly punishment they were to receive could be of little consequence to them, but of great agony and significance to their children. Each prisoner carried four badges of dishonor: an unlit wax taper, which signified that the light of the Church had gone out in the sinner's soul; a rope around the neck, each of whose gnarled knots indicated that the wearer would receive one hundred lashes as part of his or her punishment; a tall, conical dunce's cap whose tip danced back and forth as the wearer stumbled in fear; and, worst of all, a bright yellow sackcloth robe with a high collar and a train that trailed in the dust. The last was decorated in front with a flaming red cross, and for more than fifty years after the final judgment of this day, it would hang in churches throughout Spain, clearly labeled with the name of the heretic who had worn it, thus proclaiming forever the holy sin of that family, so that the descendants of the condemned could never hold office in Spain, or become priests, or serve as officers in the army, or collect taxes, or travel overseas, or do anything but expiate in poverty and despair the sins of their ancestor.

At the rear of the procession came seven who were accorded special attention, for their dunce's caps were taller than the rest and decorated with twisting red flames fed by embroidered devils, and although the crowds had been pressing forward to stare at the guilty, when these seven pa.s.sed, even the most curious fell back. Each was attended by two Dominican friars who consoled those who had at the last minute abjured their error so that they might die in the bosom of the Church, and expostulated with those who had refused.

Behind the condemned rode the marquis of Guadalquivir, his handsome old face a mask, and following him on spirited horses came six other n.o.bles of the region, after whom the lesser priests of the various congregations of Seville appeared. Marching with the Franciscans was Antonio Palafox, whose lips were already dry; as he entered the area of the plaza he saw that one of the best seats on the platform was taken by Leticia.

The Holy Inquisition made these Sunday judgments as impressive as possible, for by this means heresy could be controlled, and now, with the mult.i.tude a.s.sembled, a minor priest conducted Ma.s.s and asked blessing upon what was to follow, whereupon the Grand Inquisitor rose and, addressing the condemned as they stood in their bright robes of shame, preached to them for two and a half hours on the disgrace they had brought upon themselves and the grief they had caused the Church.

When he finished, the two senior secretaries of the tribunal marched solemnly to two facing pulpits decorated in black velvet, from which they intoned alternately the dread accusations against the condemned. Since it required many minutes to recite the evil these forty-one had accomplished, the day dragged on.

The guilty were divided into three major categories. There were some who had committed serious but not crucial offenses against the church-such as stealing religious funds or committing open adultery-and these were sentenced to two or three hundred lashes and a year or two in jail. With intense joy most of these learned that their yellow robes would not be hung in the churches, which meant that they could at some future date rejoin the community without fatal prejudice to their children. Of the forty-one, nineteen received this indulgence. When this decision was announced their tapers were relit, signifying that they had again been received into the Church.

Fifteen of the condemned, and their families, heard a more dreadful judgment. These had committed major offenses against the Church; some had once been Jews and had publicly converted to Christianity, only to backslide in secret, and their neighbors had reported them to the Inquisition; others had been Muhammadans and had done the same; still others, and they received the most crushing sentences, had listened to the allurements of the crazy monk Martin Luther; and two had written mystical poetry that could not clearly be identified as subversive but that the judges felt certain had to be. These fifteen were stripped of all possessions, were given from sixty to a hundred lashings each, were condemned to perpetual solitary imprisonment, and were advised that their robes would hang forever in their local churches: "And when the robe you are wearing shall disintegrate with time," the clerk read, "another shall be made on your behalf and hung in its place so that as long as the church lasts your infamy will be known." But their tapers were relighted.

The clerks now came to the cases of the seven who were still being prayed over by the untiring priests, and with real sorrow the officials of the Inquisition turned to inform the civil government that these seven had been so persistent in their error that the Church could no longer hope for their regeneration. In the curious phrase of the time, the clerks read, "And so we relax the prisoner Domingo Tablada to the civil authorities." This circ.u.mlocution meant simply that the irreconcilable one had no further relation to the Church and would be burned to death by civil authority. During the entire course of the Inquisition in Spain, that inst.i.tution never executed a single criminal.

It was late in the afternoon when the mayor of Seville notified the marquis of Guadalquivir that his attendance would also be required at the burning, which was to take place this time on a broad field outside the city and near the banks of the river Guadalquivir. Hiding his repugnance, the old general summoned his horse and asked that one be found for his confessor, Father Antonio, and the two men rode to the execution ground, but as they did so they pa.s.sed a string of carriages in which fashionable families were hurrying to the fires, and from the window of one Leticia waved to her father and the priest from Salamanca. The old marquis affected not to see her, but the priest waved back, feeling in his stomach that it was odd for such a girl to be engaged in such a mission.

At the edge of the river Guadalquivir, near a grove of olive trees, seven stakes had been driven into the ground and surrounded with piles of wood, over which rough steps had been built leading to small platforms on which the condemned and the priests could stand. To these seven stakes the heretics were led.

At five of the stakes a ceremony occurred that had a profound effect upon the mult.i.tude gathered in the dusty field, for prior to the lighting of the fires, priests won last-minute recantations. When the clergy indicated that this man or that woman had been saved, a joyous cry arose, whereupon an official of the Inquisition hurried up the wooden steps bearing a lighted torch from which he relit the prisoner's cold wax taper, signifying that the condemned was about to die in the arms of the Church. More important to the crowd, and perhaps to the condemned, was the fact that at this moment two burly executioners reached around from behind the stake and with powerful hands garroted the prisoner, thus saving him from the agonies of being burned while still alive. When the strangling was accomplished, the executioners leaped nimbly down, ignited the pyres and immolated the already dead bodies of the reconciled heretics.

But at the last two pyres, one containing a Jewish woman, the other a Christian friend of the marquis, no reconciliation was possible. The four priests involved with these two obdurate souls prayed and wept and implored to no avail. The Jewish woman cried loudly, "I am going to die. Let me die in my own faith."

"Look at those terrible fires," a young priest pleaded, tears streaming down his face.

"Let me die," the resolute woman repeated.

"No! No!" the priest begged.

When it was obvious that his pleas would be fruitless, the executioners moved up the steps to remove the two clergymen, and one went peacefully, but die other, determined to save the woman from die terrible ordeal that faced her, refused to be dragged away. Clinging to the woman's yellow robe, he cried in anguish, "Abjure! Abjure!" but she refused, and he was dragged down the improvised steps as the executioners prepared to set fire to the wood.

Even then the young priest would not surrender, but flung himself onto the pyre and, staring up at the Jewish woman, begged her to recant, and as the flames crept closer to his fingers he was at last dragged away.

For more than ten minutes the Jewish woman was immobile and silent, but when the f.a.ggots burst into full flame and burned away her dunce's cap and her hair and the smoke began to strangle her, in her last extremity she uttered an appalling shriek, which seemed to knock the young priest to the ground, where he groveled in agony, praying.

An official of the Inquisition, watching his disgraceful performance, muttered to an a.s.sistant, 'That one will bear watching."

"We won't have him attend any more of the condemned," the a.s.sistant a.s.sured his superior.

"Who is he?" the official asked.

"A Franciscan," the a.s.sistant replied, with some disgust. The senior official shook his head and directed his attention to the seventh stake, where the marquis of Guadalquivir had ascended the platform to speak with the condemned.

"Esteban, recant," the marquis pleaded. "Martin Luther is a fraud. He offers no salvation."

"I am like the Jewess," the doomed man replied. "I have my own religion."

"Save yourself this agony," the soldier begged.

"I have lived the worst of my agony, and now you must live yours," the prisoner replied.

"As your former general, I command you to recant."