The Hand of Fatima

by Falcones, Ildefonso

  Hernando and Miguel could hear the conversation between Rafaela and her mother from inside the doorway.

  ‘They’ll throw us out of Córdoba,’ sobbed Doña Catalina, after quickly telling her daughter that her father had caught the lethal disease. ‘What are we to do? Where will we go? The plague is devastating the countryside. Please let us take refuge in your house. We will shut ours up so that no one will know. As is his right, your elder brother Gil will become the new magistrate. He will keep our stay here a secret.’

  Hernando and Miguel raised their eyes from the ground and gazed at each other in astonishment when they heard the tone of Rafaela’s reply.

  ‘You have not been to see us in all this time. You have not even bothered to come and meet your grandchildren, Mother.’ The older woman did not reply. Rafaela continued, in a clear, firm voice: ‘Now you want to come and live with us. I wonder why you don’t want to go to Gil’s house. I’m sure you’d feel much more at home there.’

  ‘By all the saints!’ Doña Catalina insisted, her words sharp and angry. ‘Why are you reproaching me now? I’m begging you. I’m your mother! Have pity on me.’

  ‘Or perhaps you have already asked him?’ Rafaela went on, ignoring her mother’s pleas. Doña Catalina again said nothing. ‘That’s it, isn’t it, Mother? I should have known you would only come here if you had no other choice. So, my brother is afraid of being infected, is he?’

  Doña Catalina stammered an answer.

  Rafaela’s voice rang out again: ‘Do you really think I would put my family in danger?’

  ‘Your family?’ her mother snorted indignantly. ‘A Moor—’

  For perhaps the first time in her life, Rafaela raised her voice to her mother. ‘Get out of this house!’

  Hernando breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Miguel allowed himself a smile. They watched as Rafaela passed in front of them, walking along silently, head erect. She crossed the courtyard, with her mother’s pleas and sobs still resounding in the street.

  The Morisco and his family survived the plague. Together with many other Córdoban families, Doña Catalina returned to the city as soon as it was declared free of the epidemic and its thirteen gates were opened once more. She was half starved and still full of anger at Hernando and Rafaela.

  As the crowds of people began to re-enter the city and return to their houses, Miguel hastened to return to their stud. He said a quick, halting goodbye to his master and his wife.

  More than six thousand people had perished in the epidemic.

  63

  On the road to Toga, kingdom of Valencia, 1604

  TOGA WAS A small village north of Segorbe, set deep in a valley on the far side of the Espadán mountain range. Hernando headed there, via Jarafuel, on a magnificent four-year-old chestnut, which was so high-spirited that it trotted more than it walked and had to be constantly reined in. It always held its broad, proud Spanish head high, snorted even at butterflies, and shifted nervously whenever any insects flew by, its ears erect and alert at all times.

  Nine years after his last visit to Jarafuel, Hernando found that the Muslim scholar Munir had aged prematurely. Life was very hard in the mountains of Valencia, especially for someone who was trying to keep alive beliefs that were increasingly persecuted. The two men embraced and then openly studied each other. Munir’s wife served them a frugal meal, which they ate sitting on unadorned mats. They immediately began to discuss the meeting to be held in Toga, a small, hidden village still several days’ ride away, where, as in much of the region, the Muslim population were in the majority. The meeting concerned the most serious attempt at revolt to have been planned since the uprising in the Alpujarra, a revolt that was said to have the backing of King Henry IV of France as well as that of the now deceased Queen Elizabeth of England.

  The rebellion had been brewing for three years now, and Don Pedro de Granada Venegas, Castillo and Luna had asked Hernando to accompany Munir to this meeting, which was meant to finalize all the preparations. The three of them thought that the lead plaques were on the point of bearing fruit; the authentication process must finish soon, and they did not want a fresh uprising to reduce all their efforts to nought.

  The Jarafuel holy man listened closely to Hernando’s arguments.

  ‘That may be true,’ he said, ‘but it’s nigh on ten years since the lead plates first appeared, and you have to admit that so far you have achieved nothing. Without Rome’s blessing, they are worthless. That is the reality. On the other hand, the situation of our brothers in faith has grown considerably worse in these kingdoms. The Dominican Friar Bleda is continuing to insist on our annihilation by whatever means possible. He is so extreme that the Inquisitor General himself has forbidden him to speak about us, but he keeps travelling to Rome, where he has the ear of the Pope. Even more worrying is the way that the Archbishop of Valencia, Juan de Ribera, has changed his opinion.’

  Munir paused; his lined face was etched with worry.

  ‘Until recently,’ he went on, ‘Ribera was a fervent supporter of the idea of converting our people, to the extent that he paid the wages of the parish priests assigned to carry out this task from his personal fortune. That was in our favour: the priests who come here are nothing more than a band of ill-educated thieves who are not concerned about us in the least. All they ask is that we go and eat their “cakes” in church every Sunday. The only church in the entire valley of Cofrentes is the one here in Jarafuel, and even that is the former mosque! But after years of trying to convert us without success, and after spending a huge amount of money, Ribera has changed his mind. He has sent a report to the King arguing that all the Moriscos should be enslaved, sent to the galleys or forced to work in the mines in the Indies. He claims that God would favour a decision of this sort, which means that the King’s conscience should be clear. Those were his exact words.’

  Hernando shook his head in disbelief. Munir nodded gravely.

  ‘I’m not worried about the friar, because there are many like him. But Ribera does frighten me. Not only is he the Archbishop of Valencia, he is also the Patriarch of Antioch and, most important of all, the captain-general of the kingdom of Valencia. He wields great influence in the circles of the King and the Duke of Lerma.’

  The scholar fell silent again, this time for a long while, as if he needed to think carefully before going on.

  ‘Hernando, you know I supported your plan with the lead plates, but I also understand our people. They are afraid the day will soon come when the King and his council decide to adopt some of the drastic measures that are being talked about now. If that happens, we only have one choice: war.’

  ‘Ever since the revolt in the Alpujarra I’ve heard of many attempted uprisings. Some made no sense, and they all failed.’ Hernando was not willing to give up so easily. ‘More war? More deaths? Haven’t we had enough already? Why should it be any different this time?’

  ‘It is completely different,’ the scholar replied firmly. ‘We have promised . . .’ Seeing Hernando raise his eyebrows, Munir repeated: ‘Yes, I include myself with them. I support the revolt. It’s a holy war,’ he said solemnly. ‘We have promised that if the French invade this kingdom, we will help them with an army of eighty thousand Muslims and will hand over three cities to them, including Valencia.’

  ‘Do . . . do the French believe you?’

  ‘They will. They are to be given a hundred and twenty thousand ducats as guarantee.’

  ‘A hundred and twenty thousand ducats!’ Hernando exclaimed.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But that’s a fortune! How . . .? Who has managed to raise such an amount?’ Hernando recalled the serious difficulties the Morisco community had faced in trying to pay the special taxes the Christian kings imposed on them – the same kings who now wanted to exterminate them. After the defeat of the Great Armada, they had been forced to pay – ‘gladly’, as the documents put it – two hundred thousand ducats to the royal coffers. They were ordered to pay a similar
sum when the English sacked Cádiz, and were constantly required to make special extra contributions. How could they find such an enormous amount now?

  ‘They are the ones paying,’ laughed the scholar, imagining how bewildered his companion must be.

  ‘Who do you mean by “they”?’ asked Hernando.

  ‘The Christians. King Philip himself.’ Hernando gestured impatiently for him to explain. ‘Despite all the riches pouring in from the Indies, and all the property taxes it imposes, the royal treasury is empty. Philip II suspended payments several times, and his son Philip III will soon have to do the same.’

  ‘What has that got to do with it? If the King has no money, how is he going to pay you a hundred and twenty thousand ducats? Even if he . . . It’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Be patient,’ the scholar begged him. ‘Because of his financial situation, King Philip II debased our coinage.’ Hernando nodded. Like everyone else in Spain, he had been affected by the change. ‘Where once the coins had four or six parts of silver in them, now they are minted with only one.’

  ‘Yes, and people complained because they were obliged to exchange coins with a high proportion of silver in them for others that had much less. So for every coin they lost three or more parts of silver.’

  ‘That’s right. Thanks to this ruse, the royal treasury recovered all the old coins and made huge profits. But the officials had not thought of the effect this would have on people’s confidence in our currency, especially in the smaller, most common coins. Then, two years ago, King Philip III decreed that the metal for coins should not have any silver in it at all, but be made entirely of copper. Since there was no precious metal in these new coins, they did not even bear the mark of the assayer of the mint where they were struck. And our community has had more than enough practice at making coins!’ Munir smiled. ‘Binilit is dead now, but in his workshop, the apprentice who used to make Morisco jewellery now spends all his day minting fake coins. Many others are doing the same. Nowadays the coins do not even have to be made of copper. Lead ones are accepted, and so are even the heads of nails that have been stamped with something vaguely resembling a castle and a lion on each side. For every forty fake coins, the Christians are paying us up to ten silver reales! It’s been calculated that there are hundreds of thousands of ducats in fake coins in circulation throughout the kingdom of Valencia.’

  ‘Why don’t the Christians fake the coins themselves?’ Hernando asked, although he already suspected what the answer was.

  ‘Because they’re afraid of the penalties against counterfeiters, and because they don’t have our secret workshops,’ said Munir, with a smile. ‘But mostly out of laziness: it demands hard work, and you know not even the poorest Christian craftsmen are fond of that.’

  ‘But why do people, and traders in particular, accept coins they know to be fake?’ Hernando asked. He remembered how careful Rafaela always was that the coins she used were authentic, although it was true that in Córdoba it was not as common to find counterfeits as it seemed to be in Valencia.

  ‘Because they couldn’t care less,’ the scholar explained. ‘It’s what I told you before. Ever since Philip II stole the three parts of silver from them, they have no faith in the currency. With all the fakes it’s as though they are doing the same as the King, and getting their own back. So the fakes are accepted. It’s a new system of exchange. The only problem is that prices are rising, but even that doesn’t affect us as badly as it does the Christians. We don’t buy as much as them, because we have fewer needs.’

  ‘So that is how you raised the hundred and twenty thousand ducats?’ Hernando was still amazed this had been possible.

  ‘Most of it,’ said the scholar, beaming. ‘The rest came from Barbary, from our brothers who have settled there but share our hopes of recovering the lands that belong to us.’

  By now they had finished the meal Munir’s wife had prepared. Rising to his feet, the holy man invited Hernando to go out into the small garden at the back of the house. The moon and a cloudless starry sky above the Muela de Cortes mountain offered them magnificent views.

  ‘But tell me about you,’ said Munir, as he guided Hernando out into the garden. ‘Now you know what my intentions are: to fight and win . . . or to die for our God. I know that is not your way of doing things.’ The scholar leant on the railing at the far end of the garden, high above the town of Jarafuel, with the valley spread out beneath them and the dark mass of Muela de Cortes on the horizon. ‘But what has become of you since we last met?’ he asked as Hernando came and stood beside him.

  The Morisco looked up at the sky, feeling the chill winter air on his face. Then he began to tell Munir of all that had happened to him since his return to Córdoba after taking the first lead plates to Granada.

  ‘You married a Christian woman?’ Munir interjected when he heard about Rafaela. There was no note of reproach in his question.

  The two men stood staring out in front of them. Two figures silhouetted in the night, high above the valley, all alone.

  ‘I’m happy, Munir. I have a family again, with two beautiful children,’ Hernando replied. ‘All my needs are more than satisfied. I ride horses, and train colts. They’re highly prized in the market,’ he said proudly. ‘I dedicate the rest of the day to calligraphy or to studying my books. I think that the serenity I have acquired through this new family permits me to unite with God the moment I dip my quill in ink and guide it over the paper. The letters flow from within me with a perfection I have only rarely achieved before. I am writing what I hope will be a fine copy of the Koran. The Arabic characters look harmonious, and I enjoy colouring in the diacritical marks. I also pray in the mosque, in front of the caliphs’ mihrab. Do you know something? When I stand there and whisper my prayers, I feel something akin to what I feel now, staring at the spectacle the night is offering us: just like all these stars, I see the gleam of the gold and marble that went into the construction of that sacred place. And yes, I did marry a Christian woman. My wife . . . Rafaela is sweet, good and modest. And a wonderful mother.’

  Hernando gazed once more up into the starry sky. The figure of Rafaela appeared in his mind’s eye. The skinny, fearful young girl had blossomed into a mature woman. Following the birth of her children, her breasts were fuller, her hips broader. Munir refrained from interrupting his companion’s thoughts; he guessed they must be focused on the wife who seemed to have won his heart.

  ‘Besides, there are the children,’ said Hernando with a smile. ‘They are my life, Munir. I spent fifteen years without hearing the laughter of a child. Without feeling the touch of a tiny hand seeking protection in mine, without seeing in their innocent, truthful eyes all they do not know how or dare to say. Their faces alone are the most beautiful poetry there is.

  ‘We suffered a lot when our third child died before it had even begun to walk. I had already lost two, but this was the first child whose life I saw slipping away through my fingers without being able to do anything about it. I felt a huge void: why was God taking this innocent being? Why was he punishing me so harshly yet again? As I said, this was not the first child I had had taken from me, but Rafaela . . . it almost destroyed her. I had to be strong for her, Munir. Even though part of me also died with the little boy, I had to keep going to help her get over it. Since then, Rafaela has not become pregnant again, but now Allah has blessed us: we are expecting another child!’

  Hernando gazed up into the night sky once more. Rafaela and he had watched their son die, each silently praying to their own God. They were at their third child’s side until he breathed his last. They cried over him together. They buried him together according to the Christian rites, overwhelmed with despair. They returned to their home together, leaning on each other. When they were finally alone, Rafaela broke down in tears. It had been a long time before he had seen her smile again, or heard her singing around the house. But little by little the other two children and Hernando’s support had brought joy back to her face. It pained
Hernando to remember those sad months, and yet at the same time he felt proud: they had both survived the misfortune, and their marriage, which had started out on weak foundations, was now much more solid. There were only two things that had not changed since those cold, distant beginnings: Rafaela continued to respect the library, where she knew he wrote in Arabic, and Hernando, although they had decided to sleep together, also respected his wife’s beliefs and did not try to persuade her that she was not sinning when they had sexual relations. He was surprised to discover a new kind of pleasure: one that derived from the love she offered him every night. It was a silent, calm love far removed from passion and the pleasures of the flesh, as though both of them knew that nothing and no one could spoil the beauty of their union.

  ‘But tell me, do you educate your children in the true faith? Does your wife know about your beliefs?’ Munir wanted to know.

  ‘Yes, she knows,’ said Hernando. ‘It’s a long story. Miguel, the crippled groom who plotted to bring us together, told her about them. She . . . she does not say much, but when we look at each other we can read one another’s thoughts. When I pray in front of the mihrab she stands next to me as if she is fully aware of what I am doing. She knows I am praying to the one God. As for the children, the eldest is only seven. Neither of them is old enough to know how to pretend, and it would be dangerous if they gave the game away in public. A tutor comes to the house to give them lessons. For now I am happy just to tell them the stories and legends of our people.’

  ‘Will Rafaela agree to their instruction when the time comes?’ the holy man probed.

  Hernando sighed. ‘I think . . . I am sure we’ve reached a tacit agreement. She says her prayers with them; I tell them stories about the Prophet. I would like to . . .’ Hernando paused. He did not know whether the Muslim scholar would understand his dream: to be able to bring up the children in both cultures, respecting and tolerating each of them. He decided not to go on: ‘I’m sure she will.’