Torquemada Read online

  To Juan it appeared that Torquemada had not seen him; but this was a normal thing for those who approached Torquemada. He had taught himself to notice without noticing, to see without seeing and even to judge without judging. Juan walked over to the cloister and stepped into its deeper darkness, and he waited while Torquemada made another circuit. Returning on his way, Torquemada halted a few paces from Juan and stood there. In the shadow of the cloister, Juan Pomas was unable to see whether or not Torquemada was looking at him or how he was appraising him, or whether there was a question in Torquemada’s eyes. Torquemada had no eyes, no face, only a cowled shape, a black robe that exchanged form with the form of the shadows that surrounded him.

  The two of them stood there while the morning became grey and then a paler grey, and finally Torquemada observed softly.

  “At this time, my son, so early in the morning, the body may be clothed – but the soul is naked. To God, the soul is naked. It stands naked before God because no clothes and no body will cover it or hide it.”

  It was not a question and it was not a statement. Juan did not know what to say, so he simply waited and said nothing – only stood there, afraid and waiting. Torquemada went on.

  “The night is a time for sleep. Why couldn’t you sleep, my son?”

  Juan Pomas shook his head dumbly. He was terribly afraid and he felt a desperate need to answer Torquemada’s question, but he could not speak and he only shook his head dumbly.

  “Do you fear me, my son?” Torquemada asked gently. “What is there to fear? We are the servants of God. People of Christ. How can you fear me? Have you heard it said that Torquemada was once a man and has now become a monster? Do monsters serve God? This is a question you must ask yourself and you must answer this question as well. Tell me, do monsters serve God?”

  “I don’t know,” Juan muttered.

  Now it was light, with the true morning light, and the first rays of the sun touched the flat towers of the monastery. Juan could see Torquemada now; his robe became a robe of black homespun, his face, cowled over, was an edge of jutting bone, an area of brown skin, a jaw sloping and bony, but still he had no eyes. The eyes were hidden deep in the shadow of his cowl.

  “Will you serve God?” Torquemada asked Juan. “Will you serve Spain? Will you serve your immortal soul?”

  Juan tried to speak but no words came forth. He wanted to run away and he knew that flight was forbidden. He wanted to get down on his knees and plead for mercy, and that too was equally forbidden.

  “Do you think that God has forgotten Spain?” Torquemada went on. “If that is what you think, then I must ask myself why you think such thoughts. I must ask myself why God’s child and Spain’s child should think that God has forgotten Spain. I must open my heart to you and I must give you answers – otherwise, I am no priest. So I say to you, my son, God has not forgotten Spain, God has only forgotten the Jew. In all the time between creation and now, God has only forgotten the Jew. But—”

  He now came closer to Juan, so close that Juan was able at last to see his eyes, black pits in his hard-boned face.

  “But the Jew who becomes a Christian – this Jew God remembers. For this Jew has an immortal soul and there is no immortal soul on this earth that God has ever forgotten.”

  He reached out his hand and touched Juan’s shoulder and said, “Let us walk.”

  Juan walked beside him. There was nothing else that Juan could do, so Juan walked beside him and they moved around the cloister. For a while they walked in silence, until they came to the end of the colonnade. Then Torquemada turned about and they began to pace back over the path they had come. Then Torquemada said to Juan.

  “What brought you here, Juan Pomas? Few come here of their own free will. They come more easily when the soldiers of the Inquisition – of the Holy Mother Church – when these soldiers bring them. But no soldiers of the Inquisition were sent for you – and yet you came.”

  Now Torquemada reached out and touched Juan’s neck. His finger traced a line around Juan’s neck, and the young man shivered and shrank away. Torquemada whispered.

  “What is the ampule that Don Alvero wears around his neck?”

  Torquemada walked on, waiting, and Juan walked with him. But from Juan there was no reply or comment. They reached the end of the cloister and once again Torquemada turned and began to pace back.

  “The Holy Inquisition. Holy as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Their court is also holy. Do you know what the Holy Inquisition is, my son?”

  Torquemada put his arm across Juan’s shoulders. Juan pulled away suddenly and cried out to him.

  “I swear by the Mother of God, as I am a Christian! I swear, I swear to you, Father Thomas, that Don Alvero is a Christian!”

  Softly, calmly Torquemada whispered, “You swear too much. Why do you imperil your immortal soul? God hates an oath. Did I ask you to swear? Did I ask you that?”

  “Don Alvero is a Christian!”

  “You answer a question I never asked,” Torquemada said. “We have the answer, but where is the question, Juan Pomas? Is it in your heart, in your soul, or is it God’s voice? I did not ask you whether Don Alvero is a Christian. I asked you what is in the ampule he wears around his neck.”

  “A curse,” Juan blurted out.

  “What curse?”

  “The Jewish curse.”

  “Tell me, Juan Pomas, what is the Jewish curse? Do you know? And if you know, tell me how you know.”

  “I heard Don Alvero speak of it.”

  “Of what?”

  “I told you. I heard Don Alvero speak the Jewish curse.”

  Torquemada nodded and resumed his walk. Juan walked beside him as if some unseen force bound him to the Prior. Finally Torquemada said, “Speak this curse here, Juan Pomas.”

  Six more paces they walked and Juan remained silent; and then Torquemada cried out, his voice strong and commanding,

  “I absolve you! I order you! On pain of my anger, I order you to speak!”

  Juan stopped and turned and faced him and said to him pleadingly, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy might.”

  The bells began to toll again. The voice of the bells built up in Juan Pomas’ head until he thought that the force of this thunderous clangour would explode his skull and leave him mindless.

  9

  THAT MORNING MARIA DECIDED TO GO TO CHURCH and Catherine agreed to go with her. Somehow or other Maria had built up in her mind a pattern of events – events that could be negated or extinguished simply by spending the morning in church. She tried to explain to Catherine how they would confess themselves and how many candles they would light and precisely what they would say to those two priests she most favoured. Catherine listened but without enthusiasm or conviction, and when Maria put it to Alvero that he should go with them he shook his head angrily and tried to hurry them on their way.

  Catherine was troubled. She said to her father, “Will you stay here? Will you remain here? Will you be here when we return?”

  Alvero forced himself to smile and to reassure her.

  “Mother wants me to confess,” Catherine said.

  “That’s an excellent notion,” Alvero agreed. “I think you should. You will feel better.”

  “Don’t you remember?” Catherine whispered fiercely.

  “I remember nothing that troubles me in any way – and certainly nothing that should trouble you,” Alvero said. “Go to church and do as your mother wishes.”

  Alvero was relieved when they were gone. What he knew would happen, he expected to happen any moment now and each minute that went by without it happening was a sort of reprieve to him. He went into his own room, his private cabinet where he kept his ledgers and his accounts and where he did his own work, and he sat down at his desk and began to write. He had proposed to himself that he would write a single letter to his wife and his daughter together. When he could not find the words to get started upon this project, h
e attempted to write to Maria. That too proved an impossible task. Maria had left the house only a short while before, yet he could not evoke any image of her. There had been no parting between them. She had simply turned her back on him and walked out; but such an action was quite reasonable from Maria’s pointy of view. There was no reason why Maria should consider that this morning was different from any other morning.

  At last Alvero settled in his own mind for a letter to Catherine and once he began to write the words flowed easily from his pen. He had finished this letter, folded it and sealed it and was at work on a second document, a sort of codicil to his will, when he heard the sound of marching men and steel against steel outside in the street. He walked over to the window and there in the burning morning sunlight he saw six Inquisition soldiers marching down the street towards the house. They were in half-armour, their big boat-shaped helms tilted back on their heads. As always they were unkempt and their arms were poorly kept and Alvero found himself thinking that if he commanded them his first action would be to turn the lot of them into the river-bed with plenty of soap. The thought was childish and he shrugged and went back to his desk and to the document he was writing. One part of him concentrated on what he was doing. Another part of him heard the soldiers hammer at the door and then heard Julio’s muffled voice as he opened the door. Presently Julio was tapping on the door to his room. Alvero rose and let the servant in.

  “What is it, Julio?” Alvero asked.

  “You know, don’t you? You must have heard them.”

  “I know.”

  “I would not let them in the house,” Julio said. “They are filthy and they stink. Anyway it is not fitting that such scum should enter the house of a Spanish gentleman and drag him away like a thief.”

  “And did they agree to wait outside?”

  Julio nodded.

  “For now,” Alvero said. “Presently they will become bolder. They will stop knocking at doors and break down doors and when good people like yourself stand in their way they will kill without thinking twice about it.”

  “You must go with them?” Julio asked.

  “For the moment, yes. Never mind that, there are more important things.” He handed the letter he had written to Julio. “This is for my daughter, Julio. It is very important.”

  “She will have it, Don Alvero.”

  “Now this—” Alvero took up the second piece of paper and handed it to Julio. “This, Julio, is a codicil to my will. It says that if I should die you are entitled to the ownership of the white stallion you have always admired and also to one hundred gold pieces—”

  “Please, please, Don Alvero,” Julio interrupted. “I don’t want you to talk about that. Your death is far away.”

  “No man’s death is far away,” Alvero said impatiently. “Now you just listen to me and take this document and do what I say. I know that you cannot read, Julio, but I have explained to you what is in the document. If you lose this document, you will be entitled to nothing except the little bit in my regular will. I want you to know that in my regular will I provide for you and for the other servants, but that is a small matter. I want you to have this. Now leave me alone and go to the holy soldiers and tell them that I will be with them as soon as I have dressed myself properly.”

  Alvero’s shirt was stained with perspiration already. He put on a fresh shirt of white silk and over it a velvet vest. He buckled his finest ornamental dagger onto his belt, took his mirror, and combed his long hair carefully. As he walked to the door, he smiled, reflecting on the childish vanity of his own actions.

  The Inquisition soldiers were waiting for him. The sergeant in charge of the small squad said to him.

  “We will not put irons upon you, Don Alvero, but you must not try to escape. I know that we are dealing with a Spanish gentleman, but you will admit that these are different times.”

  “I admit that, Sergeant.” Alvero nodded.

  “Strange times, Don Alvero. It is not enough simply to be a Spanish gentleman or to be a sergeant like myself. All relationships have changed, don’t you agree?”

  “I agree.” Alvero nodded.

  “So I will not put the irons upon you and you must not try to escape. Just stand among us and we will all walk together to the priory.”

  Alvero nodded and took his place among the soldiers and they marched off. The church bells had stopped ringing now and the only sound was the clank of the soldiers’ metal and the hard crunch of their feet. As they passed through the streets of Segovia, men and women and children paused in whatever they were doing to look at them. But no one said anything, no one laughed, no one mocked, no one spoke. Even the children were silent. There was no one in Segovia who did not know Don Alvero, but now no one had a word to say for him or a word to say against him.

  That way they marched through Segovia and out of the town on the road that led to the monastery.

  The morning was warmer than usual. By the time they reached the monastery, Alvero was perspiring again and he remembered how upset Maria would become when he ruined one of his very fine and expensive silk shirts with perspiration. No matter how much the peons rinsed the shirts in salt water, perspiration stains remained.

  They walked on through among the monks, who went on with their work, neither watching them nor acknowledging their existence by any word or action. They went through the cloister and into the building and down the corridor to the Inquisition room. A black-robed Dominican was waiting and he nodded at the soldiers and told them to leave Alvero and to go. Then the Dominican opened the door of the Inquisition room and motioned for Alvero to enter. Alvero walked in slowly. The friar followed him, closing the door.

  Now there were seven men at the long refectory table that stood in the centre of the room. In the middle was Torquemada and on each side of him there were three Inquisitors. They were all of them strangely alike, not indulgent men, not fat men or cheerful men-but all of them strangely like Torquemada, lean of face, dark of eye, brown-skinned and determined. They stared at Alvero as he entered but their stares carried no particular meaning. They neither approved nor disapproved. They simply watched him.

  At this time of the morning the light from the windows behind the Inquisitors glared down in broad bands. The light lit up Alvero who stood in the midst of a great shaft of dancing dust motes. The Inquisitors however remained shadowed, strangely distant, strangely aloof.

  For Alvero at this moment, there was neither fear nor anger. If he had been asked to state precisely what he felt, he would have had to reply that he felt nothing at all. He was divorced from himself and it was with real rather than feigned curiosity that he said to Torquemada.

  “Why have you brought me here, Thomas?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “If I knew I would not ask you.”

  “You see, Alvero,” Torquemada said, “we have many years of friendship behind us. I know you very well – and I think that I know something about your soul, but your mind remains closed to me. I have no powers to enter it; I have no magic or unearthly skills. I am only a poor monk who does the best he can and I think that you know that better than anyone else. So suppose you tell me why you are here.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don Alvero,” Torquemada went on, “do you accept the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul?”

  “I accept it.”

  “Then we are here not as your enemies but as your saviours – for what is any earthly discomfort as against the eternity of immortality?”

  At this point Torquemada waited. He leaned forward eagerly and the three friars on either side of him looked from his face to Alvero’s face and then back to Torquemada’s face. But Alvero did not reply and then Torquemada said gently.

  “Confess yourself.”

  “Of what?”

  “Shall we decide that?”

  “Tell me what I am charged with,” Alvero demanded.

  “As simple as that. Most men who stand here, Don Alvero de Ra
fel, are filled with fear. They don’t fear me. They fear God, and in me they fear only what is God’s purpose. Are you not afraid?”

  “No.”

  “Do you fear God, Alvero?”

  “I fear only what threatens me,” Alvero answered slowly. “God doesn’t threaten me.”

  “Do I threaten you?”

  “I will not put boundaries on friendship, Thomas. There is no need for either of us to lacerate the skin or the soul of the other. Tell me what I am charged with.”

  Torquemada sighed and then suddenly clenched his fist and smashed it down on the table in front of him. “The supreme heresy! Judaizing!”

  “I am no Jew, I am a Christian,” Alvero said softly.

  “So you are – so you are, Alvero de Rafel. Otherwise you would not stand before this Holy Inquisition. No Jew stands here – for to what purpose, to what end would they stand here? Damned as they are from the moment of their birth, they have no hope of salvation. Neither sin nor heresy is within their province – only the perpetuation of God’s curse untempered by God’s mercy. Such is the condition of the Jew and the holy stones of this priory will not be stained by his presence.”

  Torquemada’s anger went almost as if he had verbally dismissed it. His voice became gentle and understanding. His clenched fist opened and his fingers traced patterns on the table in front of him. He looked up at Alvero and his dark eyes probed searchingly as he said, “I have known you many years, Don Alvero de Rafel – yourself and your wife and your daughter. As an unbaptized infant I held your daughter in the palm of my hand and I have watched her grow. I have known you and I have loved you. Do not place your damnation as another burden upon me. I have burden enough. You said before that we were friends and if that is the case there is a necessity for understanding. Understand the burden I bear, Alvero. I plead with you – confess yourself, absolve yourself.”