The Day of Atonement

by David Liss

“No,” I said. “I am his friend. I’ve come to fetch the girl for him.”

  “Why does he not come himself?”

  “Searching the streets of a ruined city is a task for which I am better suited than he,” I answered. In the hopes alleviating her concerns, I added, “The girl knows me. She will tell you so, and that I am her father’s friend.”

  “I am made to understand he is not a good Catholic,” the nun said, again quietly.

  “He is not even a good man,” I replied. “I cannot say he is a good father, though I do not believe he is a terrible one. But I do know he loves this girl, and what is more important, she loves him. The Inquisition took her from her father as a pawn in a larger game, not because it had any concerns about her soul. Sister, my father was taken from me by the Inquisition. I do not want this girl to become what I have.”

  “You do not fear the Inquisition’s wrath?” she asked.

  Franklin snorted. “I’ve never met a man who feared it less.”

  “The Inquisition is broken,” I said. “If not forever, then at least for now. Its priests will be too busy protecting their gold to worry about a little girl, and if you wish to protect yourself, you need only say she vanished in the chaos. I have seen people crushed and buried alive. I have witnessed I do not know how many thousands swept away by the sea. No one will disbelieve you.”

  Still the nun remained motionless.

  “You say you believe you were spared to do God’s work,” I pressed. “Do you believe keeping a child from her father is God’s work?”

  She sighed. “You speak the truth, senhor. We live or die by the Inquisition’s pleasure, or at least we used to. Perhaps, as you say, things may be different. For now, at least, all this suffering and destruction will allow me to tell a plausible lie. Do you swear by the blood of Christ that you will return this girl to her father, and that you will keep her safe?”

  “This could complicate things,” Franklin muttered.

  “Sister,” I said, “I am a Jew, and I will not take that oath.”

  She blanched, turning white beneath the grime on her face. “You are the priest killer.”

  “I am someone who did not wish to be killed by priests,” I offered.

  “And if I do not do what you say, will you kill me too?”

  “If you attack me with a knife, I may be forced to handle you more roughly than I should like, but if you only try to block my path, I believe walking around you will prove sufficient.”

  The nun continued to stare. “For a murderer, you speak with a great deal of reason.”

  “Then perhaps what I did was not murder,” I proposed. “Perhaps it was justice. Perhaps it was even God’s justice. You, too, give every sign of being a woman of reason. I shall let you decide if it must always be murder to kill an agent of the Inquisition.”

  “This man has been wronged by the Inquisition priests,” Franklin said. “He has seen his family and friends imprisoned and killed. The Inquisition came to drag him to the same fate. That’s why he killed those men. It can’t be a crime to destroy those who would destroy you.”

  “Killing is always a sin, but not all of us believe the Inquisition does God’s work,” the nun said very quietly. “I will help you if you swear by whatever you value that you will do what you have promised.”

  “I do swear,” I said, “upon the memory of my father, and of his parents, and of all those who have died in the Inquisition prisons. I swear by the God who led my ancestors out of Egypt and who set me free from Lisbon long ago.”

  She stared at him. “Set you free? Then you have come back? By choice?”

  “Yes, Sister. I returned here to atone for the crime of leaving others behind.”

  “It seems to me you have done much to atone for since your return,” she said.

  “That,” I said, “is one point on which we shall not disagree.”

  * * *

  The nun led us up a long staircase whose gloom had not been broken by the lighting of its lamps. “Do you also promise not to hurt Sister Juana Maria?”

  I began to grow weary of these promises, but I said, “I have no desire to hurt anyone. I want to bring the child to her father. I would like to believe I will not have to harm an aging nun in my efforts to do that.”

  We approached a door, and the nun knocked. There was no answer from within.

  “It is odd,” she said. “I thought she was in there with the girl.”

  I heard the muffled sound of a child crying, and I recognized it as Mariana. “Have you a key?” I asked the nun.

  She shook her head.

  I examined the door. It was too heavy to break down, and it was clearly barred from the inside, which meant picking the lock would do no good. “Fetch me an axe,” I said.

  “No,” she answered. “I cannot let you destroy holy property.”

  “Do you mean to say that your desire to return this girl to her father vanishes if doing so means harming a door? It is too late for such niceties. I am here, and the girl I have come for is in there. That means the door is opening or coming down.”

  Unwilling to leave the room unattended, I sent Franklin to go with the nun to find the axe. While they were gone, I pressed my ear to the door. I thought I could hear Mariana crying again, but maybe it was just my pulse pounding in my ear.

  At last, Franklin and the nun returned. I went to take the axe from Franklin, but the big man shook his head.

  “Let me be of some use,” he said. “I’m stronger than you. And you will need to rush in once the door is down. If I am good at anything, it is mindless work. If there is thinking to be done, better it should be done by you.”

  I managed a thin smile. “That may be the most eloquent confession of stupidity ever uttered.”

  Franklin began to swing the axe. With each strike, the nun winced, as though something she loved were being hurt. It took five blows and then the lock was off and the inner bar broken. I pushed through the door. Inside I saw an elderly nun sitting with Mariana on her lap. In front of them, with a sword brandished in his hand, was Pedro Azinheiro.

  Chapter 31

  It was a spare room with a wooden floor and a single bed. By the large window was a bench with a red velvet cushion, and upon the wall was a massive painting of the Virgin holding the infant Jesus.

  “Mr. Foxx!” Mariana cried. “Have you come to take me back to Papa?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off Azinheiro, but I managed a smile. “That is exactly what I’ve come to do.”

  “I don’t like it here,” she said.

  “Hush, child,” the older nun said. “We have treated you well.”

  “You can’t have her,” Azinheiro said, though he took a step back as he spoke. His skin was all bruises and bandages, but none of his wounds struck me as serious. He thrust the sword in my direction, but the action did little except inform me that he had likely never before handled a blade.

  How many times would this man attempt to take what mattered to me? It was enough. I would endure it no longer. I did not want to savor his death or make him suffer or beg. I did not need him to understand his crimes or repent them. I wanted him dead.

  “Why can I not have her?” I said, speaking slowly, planning how I would approach. In just a few seconds, it would be over. I would do what I had come here to do. At long last, Azinheiro would be gone.

  “Because you want her. You’ve done enough damage. Killing my soldiers and the men at the Palace. And robbing the Inquisition! Did you think I would not hear of that? You think yourself some sort of avenger, but you are nothing but a thief, taking our money.”

  “And where did the Inquisition get that money?” I demanded, moving slightly to the right and in, crowding his sword, making it more difficult to gain any momentum with it. I was nearly in position to strike. “Does the Inquisition have any purpose but to hoard more gold? I’ll not quibble with you, priest, about which of us is evil. I only wish to know if I was mistaken in my belief that priests were not allowed to u
se swords.”

  “I shall have to confess the sin,” Azinheiro said.

  “I doubt you shall live long enough to do so.”

  Azinheiro laughed, and he appeared to believe in truth the advantage was his. “How can you stop me? If I see you reach for a weapon, I will run you through.”

  It was time. I could move now, reach in, grab his wrist hard and twist it. The sword would drop. I already heard in my ears the clang of metal on stone. I would twist his arm, and he would cry out and fall to his knees. I would take his head, and twist, and it would be over.

  Why, then, did I not take the opportunity? Why did I still talk? “You may be willing to commit the sin of wielding a blade, but I have observed in a dozen ways that you have made no habit of studying its use. I’ve spent the past ten years of my life training in the arts of fighting. Are you so certain you can have the better of me?”

  Azinheiro blinked several times. I suspected he was still trying to think of a way out of this situation that did not involve a direct confrontation with me. Likely he knew he had made a mistake, he had challenged in arms a man who outclassed him in every conceivable way. He wanted only an honorable means to escape.

  “Look around you,” I said. “The city is in ruins, and the Inquisition is scattered. Your world has come to an end, but this child’s has not. Let her go, and I will let you go.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I understood them. Did I mean it? I did. I did not want to kill him, though I knew he did not deserve to live. Perhaps I did not want to be remade. Perhaps I did not want to let go of the anger and be transformed. Perhaps I did not want to discover that killing him made no difference, that I would always remain who I now was. All of those things were true—but they were not, I realized, the main reason.

  I simply did not want to kill a man, no matter how terrible, in cold blood. The desire was nothing but memory.

  “Let her go,” I said, “and you can live. Never cross me again, and I shall not come after you.”

  “If I let her go, you will have no reason not to kill me,” he said.

  “You deserve death,” I told him. “You deserve it a thousand times over, but more than that, the girl deserves to be free. Release her, and I will leave you. I will leave Lisbon. I will be done with all of it.”

  “I don’t believe you.” With his free hand, Azinheiro reached out and grabbed Mariana from the nun and pulled her close to him. He pressed her to his body and laid the blade across her chest, just under her throat. Her eyes went wide, but she held still.

  “Now you dare not attack me,” the priest said. “You are going to let us both walk out of here, otherwise the girl dies. All the fighting skills in the world won’t be able to prevent it. Whatever else you have done, you will not do this. I will not let you return this child to her English father.”

  Rage pulsed in my head. I felt my fist tighten into a hard ball. I had offered to let him live. I had agreed to walk away from my reasons for being here. After all I had endured to get to this moment, I was prepared to show mercy, and now he pressed a blade to this girl’s throat.

  Azinheiro said, “You think me cruel, but I am trying to save this girl. Better she should come of age in the true church than with a drunk and a thief for a father.”

  “That is not your decision to make,” I told him.

  Azinheiro grinned. “It looks to me like it is. She will stay in my care or she will leave this world entirely. She can enter the kingdom of heaven as an innocent. Which shall it be?”

  I hesitated a moment. I liked to consider myself a man of principle, and there were things to which I did not like to stoop. That said, I decided that no one in that room—including myself—mattered except Mariana. Getting her back to Settwell was my purpose, and everything and everyone that stood in the way of that was expendable. I had tried the path of clemency and forgiveness and it had yielded nothing. It was time for another way. And so I lunged forward and around Azinheiro, yanking the priest’s mother to her feet.

  I did not trouble myself with threats. I simply caught the old nun in a headlock and began to squeeze. Her thin body, bony and delicate, writhed against me. Her skin was dry as paper, and what little air she could suck in rattled in her chest.

  The nun who had helped us screamed, but Franklin grabbed her arm to hold her back. His expression was neutral, like a man at an execution who knows nothing of the condemned’s crimes.

  The old nun began to thrash. I moved to tighten my grip on her, but relaxed it slightly instead. I did not want to be hurting old women no matter whom I was trying to save. I could not go through with it. Even threatening her was more than I could endure.

  Azinheiro, meanwhile, pretended toward bravado. “Ha, you think I care what happens to some old nun? Kill her for all I care. It will get you nothing.”

  “The old nun is your mother,” I said, stalling while I figured out how I could extract myself from this nightmare. “You don’t want her to come to harm.” And then I knew what I would do. “But it’s too late!” I shouted.

  I pushed her head to one side and tossed her toward the other nun to break her fall. Pretending to kill her was a risk. Azinheiro might have struck at Mariana out of retaliation, but I knew human nature well enough to expect that he would, if only for an instant, look over to see what had become of his mother.

  When he did, I reached out to his wrist and twisted. The sword fell, and I released my grip, catching the blade smoothly. Meanwhile, with my other arm, I pulled Mariana toward me.

  I now had the weapon and the girl. Mariana hugged me. I felt the moisture of her tears dampen my shirt, but she made not a sound.

  I looked up. Franklin had the priest in a headlock, much as I had held his mother. He struggled, but Franklin, as he had said, was strong, and Azinheiro could not escape.

  “Put him there,” I said to Franklin, pointing with the sword to a chair in the corner. Franklin gave the priest a rough push, and he went crashing into the chair.

  I then gently removed Mariana’s arms and handed her over to Franklin. “Go with my friend downstairs. I shall be there in a moment, and then we’ll go to your father.”

  “I don’t know him,” she said, looking at Franklin. “I want to stay with you.”

  “You can trust him, Mariana. I promise.”

  “I’ll take good care of you,” Franklin said. “A man would be a fool not to do as Mr. Foxx wishes.”

  Mariana nodded and they left.

  I stood in the room with Azinheiro and the nun who had admitted us, who was now bent over Sister Juana Maria. The old woman sat on the floor, looking somewhat dazed. Later, I would feel remorse for how I had treated her, but I pushed those thoughts away for now. She had been treated roughly, but no one had been hurt. Not yet.

  “She will be well,” the nun said to Azinheiro. “She only needs some air and rest.”

  She turned and glared at me, but her gaze conveyed nothing I hadn’t already said to myself.

  “Take her away,” I said to the nun. “I have business with the priest.”

  “There will be no violence in a house of God,” the nun said.

  I laughed. “Is this a new rule? I spent my childhood in Portugal, and I have never heard of such an injunction before. I suggest you visit the torture room of the Inquisition Palace.”

  The nun helped Sister Juana Maria. She turned back only once, looking at her son mournfully.

  The priest sat in the chair in the corner, looking small and defeated.

  “I shall let you walk out of here,” I said. “No priest of the Inquisition has ever done so much for a Jew, but I will grant you this gift today. I suggest you take it.”

  “Why?” the priest asked.

  “My reasons are my own,” I told him. I had not fully sorted them out for myself, and I was in no mood to explain them to him.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  I shrugged. “I can’t change that, but all the same, I am letting you live, and I am letting y
ou leave. Perhaps when I am gone, you will believe me.”

  I turned to walk away, and the priest hurled himself out of his chair. Apparently, the sword was not the only blade with which he had armed himself. He had produced a small knife, which he thrust at me. He was slow and clumsy, however, and I easily sidestepped, grabbed his arm, and pushed him roughly against the wall. He landed hard, and his head smacked against stone. The knife fell from his hand and his eyes rolled momentarily, but he did not collapse.

  With my left forearm, I pinned the priest to the wall by his throat, while with my free hand I took a blade from my belt. I was having difficulty coming up with reasons not simply to kill him and be done with it.

  “Perhaps I made a mistake,” Azinheiro gasped. “You are not a murderer. What you did to my mother was vile, but I understand you did it for the girl. You don’t wish to harm me, so let me go.”

  “So you can try to kill me again?” I asked. “So you can abduct children and destroy families?”

  “I must do those tasks appointed to me,” he said, “but you need not hurt anyone. You are not so cruel.”

  “I am what you have made me.”

  “I did not make the Inquisition,” Azinheiro said. “I was but a poor child. I would have starved, ended up a soldier or worse, had I not found a home there. And if I had not been the one to arrest your father, it would have been another. You may hate the institution if you like, but its agents are only fallible men.”

  “It is a poor excuse. I shall not have it.”

  “Revenge gets you nothing, my son. Seek forgiveness instead. If you kill me, how will you feel later?”

  “It is difficult to say,” I mused. “But I know if I don’t, you will hurt others, and their pain, their blood, shall be on my hands.”

  “Do not your Jewish practices have a day of atonement?” the priest asked. Seeing my startled reaction, his eyes sparkled with hope. “Yes, I have studied your beliefs, and I know such things. Men may atone for their sins. Is it not wrong to rob me of my chance to atone?”

  I let go of the priest and then pushed him to the stone floor. “How will you make amends, priest? How will you atone for killing my parents? How will you atone for destroying people simply because their ancestors were once Jewish? How will you atone for the pastry man, whom you destroyed because you did not like his customers? What can you say to me that will unstain your hands or give me back my family, my friends, the wife I will never have? Let me hear what you have to offer.”