The Inquisitor's Wife (15 page)

“Of course not,” I said. “You needn’t say any more about it.”

“You’re not offended?” He looked up at me, his tone suddenly wistful. “Not … disappointed?”

I shook my head and took a swallow of wine to wash away the last of the
polvorón
crumbs stuck in my throat. When I set down my goblet, Gabriel was watching me with an eerie light in his eye.

“I’m very tired,” I said, trying to sound casual. “May I retire to my chambers for the evening?”

Without answering, he rose and walked around the table in order to pull back my chair, a gallant gesture. But when I stood up and turned to leave, his body blocked me; his breath was coming hard, causing the muscles in his chest to strain against his tunic.

I was frightened but refused to show it. “Thank you for the use of your cape,” I said, as I slipped it off my shoulders. Without meeting his fixed gaze, I held it out to him.

He reached toward it, let it drop to the floor, and grasped my hand, hard, before I could pull it away.

“You’re so beautiful, Marisol,” he whispered. “Surely you know I’ve loved you for such a very long time.”

I tried to free myself, but he tightened his grip, leaned down, and swept the dishes in front of me aside with a sharp, violent sweep of his other arm. Pottery, silver, and glass clashed and clattered; my goblet cracked where the bowl met the stem and toppled, spilling wine that ran off the table’s edge onto my skirts. The candelabrum teetered dangerously, spewing hot wax that hissed as it met the alcohol.

Gabriel seemed to register none of it. He caught my other hand and squeezed it until I flinched with pain.

“Let me go!” I struggled, but it only inflamed him more. He pulled me to him again until our bodies touched; his was shaking.

“I thought perhaps you had come to care for me. You know I’ve always wanted you,” he whispered, almost angrily; his lips were parted, his eyes wide. He looked down at my face for a response, but I refused to give him one.

I stilled my own trembling; he was more than twice my size and could easily have taken me. But remembering his initial reluctance to attack the elderly Jew until his fellows urged him on, I feigned confidence and straightened until I inhabited as much space as possible.

“Let go of my hand!” I snapped, in my best imitation of the late don Jerónimo. “Have you forgotten your vow of celibacy so quickly?”

Fury sparked in his eyes, threatening to turn into a blaze; his breath came rapidly through his open mouth. It stank of the sour wine, and I wanted to turn my head away, but my father taught me never to turn my back on a dog that bites. Instead, I scowled as hard as I could and stamped my foot.

“Don Gabriel! What would your brother say, to see you now?”

His gaze dropped, and the fair skin of his neck and cheeks turned a mottled red; slowly, he released my hands, which bore the marks of his fingers. “You would tell him?”

“I would. A promise must be kept.”

“Then never speak to anyone of this,” he hissed.

By the time I looked up from my aching hands, he had disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind only the sound of his rapidly receding tread.

*   *   *

Máriam was startled by my early return; she had changed into her nightgown and dressing gown and was standing at the basin in the antechamber, peering into the mirror. She’d always slept in my mother’s room, and I’d never seen her without her turban. Her matte black hair was parted in the middle and braided in tiny rows, like a farmer’s carefully tilled field. Dozens of slender little braids fell almost to her shoulders, and she was replaiting one of them, at whose end was a cloud of dark hair.

Her amazing hair intrigued me, but what caught my attention most was the right side of her scalp: A palm-size swatch of skin above her ear was completely bald, though she had tried her best to cover it with the braids. Lamplight reflected off a series of raised, shiny scars that looked like pink-red tiger’s stripes.

As I entered, I drew in a breath at the sight of the scars. Máriam grabbed her long black scarf on the dresser, but I instinctively reached for her old wound before she could cover it.

“Oh, poor Máriam! What happened?”

“It happened a long time ago,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.” She got hold of her scarf and carelessly tied it back on, despite the fact that it was almost time for bed.

“But what … did someone hit you?”

She clearly hadn’t intended for me to see the scar. For a long moment she studied me guardedly and then looked past me at something too distant to be contained by the Hojedas’ walls. Whatever she saw caused her eyes to narrow; she recoiled slightly, but soon lifted her chin, defiant and resolute.

“My hair caught fire,” she said at last, watching me carefully. When I nodded to encourage more explanation, she motioned me to the bedchamber. I went obediently, and when Máriam gestured at the chairs in front of the hearth, I sat in one. She took the other and stared into the flames. When she spoke again, it was at the measured pace of a storyteller.

“It happened thirty years ago this coming summer, doña. I was thirteen years old and worked as a laundress for the Convent of the Incarnation; I’d shown myself to be a hard worker and was given much responsibility—in the form of more bedding to wash from their hospital and orphanage.

“They allowed me to farm the work out and gave me an allowance to pay for it. They never asked where I took it, but they knew, as I did, that the cheapest labor could be found in the Jewish Quarter.

“I found a woman there—a lady, actually—who was fast and reliable. She always took the time to get the stains from every sheet and scrubbed them until they were white again. Her name was doña Raquel. She lived in one of the nicer homes in the Quarter and was well-spoken. She had a charming eight-year-old daughter called Raquelita, ‘little Raquel,’ and three older sons. Her husband, don Moisés, was a rabbi, a very learned man whose study was always filled with books.

“Unlike most, they didn’t look down on me for being born a Muslim and an African. They always shared food with me, especially during their holidays: Doña Raquel always worried that I was too thin and worked too hard. I began to give her more and more work, because although she and her husband came from aristocratic families, the laws made it almost impossible for Jews who weren’t bankers to make a living. Even so, doña Raquel was always taking food to the poor.”

I couldn’t look at Máriam anymore. I stared into the fire along with her and fought the urge to put my fingers in my ears. I didn’t want to hear any more sad stories about Jews. I wanted to put my mother’s past behind me and to forget how cruelly I had rejected her for it; at the same time, I couldn’t stop listening.

“Doña Raquel was not only generous and kind but a very beautiful woman,” Máriam continued. “Had she been a Christian, she would have married well and lived a pampered life. But she remained faithful to her religion—a very brave thing to do—and she loved and respected her husband. And she treated me like a friend, as if I were a real Spanish lady like her. For two years, I delivered laundry to her twice a week, and I became very fond of her and of little Raquelita, who helped with the laundry and was always grinning and playful. Raquelita told me my skin was beautiful and was always stroking my arm just to touch it; I used to lean down so that she could pat my hair, because she loved how soft it was.”

Máriam smiled fleetingly at the memory, but her tone soon darkened.

“But I worried about them, too. Attacks on Jews were as common then as now. And one afternoon I was carrying a bundle of dirty laundry to doña Raquel. Her house stood on a corner in the
judería,
and I always knocked at the servants’ side door. Normally I wouldn’t have turned the corner to see the front of her house, but that day I heard angry shouts out in the street, so I peered around the side of the building.

“A group of seven men, maybe more, stood out in front of doña Raquel’s house—all Old Christians, all laborers or poor. There was a butcher in his bloody apron with a cleaver in his hand, and a blacksmith with his sleeves rolled up and his sledgehammer resting on one shoulder, and a man with a burning torch.” She closed her eyes at the mental image. “You probably don’t know how narrow all the streets are there—not wide enough for me to lie down crosswise. The men pressed together around doña Raquel’s front entrance.

“One of them was saying terrible things about Jews, calling them names and blaming them for a missing boy. And I could hear don Moisés calling back that he would never harm a precious child. But the other man yelled, ‘All Jews are filthy liars! You’re the rabbi; either you or one of your flock has him! Give him back—or at least give us his body!’

“If doña Raquel hadn’t been so good to me, I would have run away; I knew there would be trouble. But I went back the way I’d come and pounded on the side entrance.

“No one answered, so I opened the door and called out to doña Raquel and her daughter. They didn’t answer, but I could hear the girl crying in the front of the house.

“I followed the sound and found Raquelita clinging to her mother’s skirts in the kitchen. Doña Raquel was staring out at don Moisés, who had stepped out into the street. It was hot and the window was open; we could hear every word and I could smell the men’s sweat. The two older sons must have been off working, but the youngest son—maybe ten or eleven—was standing in the threshold just behind the rabbi. He was frightened but also red-faced with anger for his father’s sake. ‘Devil worshipper,’ they called don Moisés, ‘swine’ and ‘stinking Jew,’ even though he was a very clean man and they were the ones who stank.

“Doña Raquel was trying to hush her daughter, and when she saw me, she put her fingers to her lips and touched my shoulder to keep me from getting too close to the window; we stood back in the shadows so the men outside couldn’t see us.

“One of the men demanded that don Moisés let them into the house so they could search for the missing boy. The rabbi politely refused, saying the only children inside were his own and that he didn’t want them to be frightened. He said, ‘My God and yours forbids us to kill. We are good people and obey the ten commandments. My family is just like yours.’

“For that, the man stepped forward and spat in don Moisés’s face, and another pulled his beard. His son couldn’t stand it and pushed past him to strike the man who’d spat at the rabbi.

“It was a child’s clumsy blow and did no real harm. Some of the men laughed, but two of them grabbed the boy and forced him to spread his hand out against the whitewashed stucco wall. The butcher came forward with his cleaver and was going to chop the boy’s fingers off, but don Moisés became surprisingly strong. He pulled the men off his son and pushed the boy back inside the house. Doña Raquel rushed forward and caught her son before he could run back out, and I held Raquelita fast and tried to soothe her.

“Doña Raquel pleaded with her husband to bolt the door and run out through the side entrance, but don Moisés instead ordered her to go herself with the children, quickly. His tone was stern, but his voice caught; by then, the men had started beating on the door to come in, and don Moisés braced himself against it, trying to hold them off. A look passed between them, one of such pain and love that I lowered my eyes to give them a final moment’s privacy.

“But doña Raquel refused to leave don Moisés. She told me to take her daughter and son and run with them. I tried to take the boy’s hand”—Máriam’s voice grew husky with sorrow—“but he pulled away from me; he wouldn’t leave, either. And the men were at the door shouting.

“They broke down the door”—Máriam clutched her elbows and leaned forward in her chair, her liquid black eyes reflecting the orange hearth light—“with the blacksmith’s hammer, and except for the rabbi, we all screamed when the wood splintered. In an instant, the door was open and the men rushed in and—”

She broke off and let her forehead touch her knees. Her voice muffled by her skirts, she moaned, “Oh, Marisol! What makes people capable of such evil?”

I put a hand on her strong back and stroked it the way my mother used to stroke mine when I needed comfort. Máriam shook with so much grief and guilt that I struggled against the impulse to weep with her.

After a moment, she lifted her head and sat up with an unsteady sigh and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Her voice became unnaturally calm and dull.

“They killed don Moisés with one blow of the sledgehammer. I looked away after the first second, but I saw the instant it struck the crown of his head, and heard the horrible crack. Saw the blood flying through the air, and the bits of…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

“And the blacksmith hit him again, again … with those awful sounds. Before I could move, a man with a torch ran toward us. I turned to run with Raquelita, but not before the attacker thrust his torch at my and doña Raquel’s heads. I was a girl then and had let my hair fall free and uncovered, so it caught fire immediately. Raquelita was screaming, too scared to run, but she was small, and I picked her up and ran without even thinking about the pain. By then the curtains and doña Raquel’s skirts were burning, and smoke began to fill the house. Doña Raquel and her boy wouldn’t come with me, but as I dashed into the other room with my hair on fire, I could hear her over the men’s shouting. She wasn’t screaming or frightened; her voice was strong and calm and she was singing a prayer.”

Gooseflesh lifted the hairs my arms. I shifted my body in the chair to face Máriam. “What was the prayer?”

“Aleinu l’shabeach l’Adon hakol…”
Máriam said. “I can’t remember the rest. Do you want to know what it means?”

A thrill coursed through me. Judaism was wicked and of the Devil; I’d rejected my own mother for uttering such prayers. Yet I suddenly wanted to understand with all my heart—even knowing that if our conversation was overheard here in the Hojeda house, our lives would be at risk.

Máriam pressed her lips to my ear and recited: “‘Let us praise the Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has commanded us to sanctify His name in public, Who has not made us like the nations of other lands, nor like other families of the earth.’ It’s the Jewish martyrs’ prayer.”