Pessoa went to his cot and set it aright. He took a blanket and wrapped himself in it. He rekindled the hearth fire. He found the three-legged stool that he had kicked across the room, took it to Soares’s bedside, and sat down.
“You will ogle me like a crow until morning.” Soares sipped his water.
Inside his shelter of blanket, Pessoa slowly warmed. He yawned.
“Well then, if you must sit my death vigil,” Soares told him, “we should at least have some brandy.”
The suggestion brought Pessoa alert. “Brandy? I’ve never known you to have brandy.”
“Hidden behind that top shelf of books. O, don’t peer at me so indignantly. I don’t hide it from you. One of my housekeepers has a taste for it. I never discovered which, and I have never complained. After all, their duty is given to the Church freely and with a generous heart. Mean-spirited of me to hide it from her, since she asks otherwise so little.”
Pessoa went to the bookcase and stood tiptoe, moving aside clean-spined tomes, stirring nose-tickling dust on the shelves behind. Concealed there was a straw-clad glass bottle. Not just brandy. French brandy. And the bottle nearly full.
He brought the bottle and two clean cups. He and Soares sat drinking in a companionable gathering of shadows.
“I dreamed I was in the inn.” Soares stared into the warm pulsing heart of the candle. “On the second floor. In the front room. You know the one.”
“I believe that Gomes sleeps there now.”
“Yes.” Soares nodded slowly. “Yes. I believe he does. And I was just standing there, Manoel, looking out the window into the street. Only the building beyond was not the greengrocers, but the old inn—Cândido’s new jail.”
Pessoa looked at the shuttered windows. Behind them, he could feel the steadfast press of night.
“It was dark outside,” Soares said. “And they were burning bodies. Carts lined the street, like from a plague. It was so dark that I thought the carts filled with logs until I saw the children.”
Pessoa lipped the bottle, pouring Soares and then himself another finger of brandy. He watched the candle flicker. The liquor’s fruity perfume was underlain with the wood cask in which it was aged. It tasted like honeyed fire.
“There were priests there, Manoel. They were the ones doing the burning. And the wind whipped bright flames and dark robes this way and that. It scattered sparks and sent embers flying.” He took a breath. “It was so beautiful.”
Soares’s thin cottony hair was mussed. His face was sad and rumpled. ‘Then I realized what a great sin it was to find loveliness in it.”
He sighed and put down his cup. He lay back on his cot and stared at the ceiling. “Go to bed, Manoel. They will call you to the inquisition just past matins.”
Pessoa nodded.
“Promise me you will not sit up all night.”
“Yes.”
Soares’s eyes closed. In a while his breathing deepened. Pessoa sipped brandy and guarded Soares as the old priest journeyed into sleep. Then he rose and snuffed the candle. In the light of the hearth fire, he fumbled his way to the window and opened it a crack. The air smelled of pine. When the wind changed hours later, it smelled of the sea. Pessoa stood sentry, guarding night as it crept to its hiding place in the valley, and protecting what he could of silver morning on its climb up the hills.
MARIA Elena Teixeira, a girl of fourteen years, was brought before the tribunal to be interrogated concerning a statement of a virgin birth. When it was seen that she did not answer the tribunal’s questions, one of the two secular inquisitors present inquired concerning certain wounds on her face so as to ascertain whether she had been made senseless by state torture. Upon being assured this was not the case, the provincial inquisitor, Fr. Pessoa, then questioned whether the girl was fit to stand trial, as she appeared to be dazed. Comment was made by Msgr. Gomes that since the accused was the focus of the town’s heresy, the tribunal had no choice but to make her answer.
The interrogation continued, the prisoner continuing to peer about the room until she was asked as to the whereabouts of her infant; and at that she began to weep and say the angels had taken it, for she had committed some sin, that she knew not what. And then she asked the gathered inquisitors, since they were learned men, if they knew her failing. Fr. Pessoa suggested that perhaps it was not the accused who was unworthy, but the world itself, that the angels gave a baby and then took it back.
Msgr. Gomes asked the accused if she had murdered her infant and she wept loudly, pointing to the air and saying, “They are coming. Can you not stop them? O stop them. They come marching through the wall,” at which time Msgr. Gomes asked if she had sighted demons. The accused did not answer but continued to wail and tear her cheeks until she bled, and it was ordered that a jailer come forward and return her to her cell.
Maria Elena howled her way down the stair, so that even when she was gone and the room quiet, Pessoa thought he could hear the stones resound.
What o’clock was it? Still early. The day too long. The strongest light on the tabletop yet came from the lamps. He studied the nervous, tapping fingers of Tadeo Vargas, the secular inquisitor, who sat next to him.
Tadeo said, “To be quite frank, Monsignor, we cannot discuss demons. Superstition is a matter for the state to deal with, not us.”
Pessoa heard Gomes suck in a breath. Time hung, waiting for the exhale. Tadeo drummed his fingers.
“I am of the opinion. Inquisitor Vargas, that what we witness here is an infernal twisting of the story of Christ’s birth. The star does not light the way. It falls. Angels act not as heralds, but as randy-natured Pans. We have a supposed virgin mother who scarce knows her own name, and who can much less keep her skirts down. The product of that birth lies not in a manger, but has disappeared no one knows where. And who arrives to witness this nonbirth? Not a wise man, but a drooling idiot of a king. No, Inquisitor Vargas. This is not superstition. This is Antichrist.”
Tadeo’s fingers halted. No. Surely Gomes did not believe … Pessoa’s mouth went dry, his tongue ran aground.
Gomes called for the next prisoner and Pessoa dared not look up. What o’clock was it? The morning must be over—it must—and time for lunch arrived. They would stop the absurdity, if only for two short hours.
He heard Gomes ask. “Name?”
He heard Senhora Teixeira’s voice. “You have it writ there.”
Louder. “Name?”
“Amalia Teixeira.”
“Mother of Maria Elena Teixeira, who makes claims of a virgin birth?”
“Yes.”
“And do you, too, make such a claim for your daughter?”
Pessoa jerked his head up and met her hurtful stare.
“Yes.”
Gomes said, “Make your statement, please, so that the notary may write it down, and so there is no question as to what is confessed.”
“Angels came into the house.” Pink dawn poured through the eastern windows, invading the room with ethereal light. “They took my daughter away, screaming. They took her even as I slept in her room. They tore her from my arms. It was as it always is when men want a thing—women cannot stop them.”
Gomes said, “Is that all?”
“No.” Delicate morning glowed across her cheek, putting color where color had long faded. “The angels forced themselves in her, and her all the while pleading for mercy. And, as men sit here in judgment, you will find my daughter and not the angels guilty. You will burn her because you cannot manage the fire between your own legs.”
Pessoa heard one of the two secular inquisitors clear his throat.
Gomes said, “Is that all?”
She looked toward the window, to the sun. “I have had much time to think on it, and I wonder if Mary herself was forced, and if God hurt her, too. But one blessing: at least this time He did not wait thirty years to steal the baby.”
Pessoa heard the scratch of the notary’s quill against paper. Scratch. Scratch. Then nothing.
> And Gomes said, “That is enough.”
A jailer came and led her away.
BROUGHT before the tribunal Duarte Teixeira, age forty-nine, man of commerce, husband to prisoner Amalia Teixeira and father to the accused Maria Elena Teixeira. He stated that he had no belief in either woman seeing angels. He credited their claim to female fantasy, and Maria Elena’s swollen belly to her having lain with a boy.
He was asked by Fr. Pessoa the name of said boy, which Sr. Teixeira did not know. Sr. Teixeira was then asked by one of the secular inquisitors if he made claim as to his daughter’s virginity, and Sr. Teixeira said that he did, that he himself had felt inside and found her intact sometime after he was made aware of her shame. He was of the opinion, however, that waywardness and female deception being what it was, Maria Elena had found a way.
Then Msgr. Gomes asked where the infant was, and Sr. Teixeira said that not only had he no idea, but that he cared not, except that it was gone from his sight. For he would have sent the baby to a wet nurse in another province, and sent the girl to a nunnery.
He was asked if that was the end of the testimony he wished to give, and he said that it was not, that he denounced both the women and their story, and that he was glad of the Inquisition setting things aright. He stated that business had sent him to the port at Cascais as the stories began, and that he returned too late. He apologized to the tribunal, and said that he no longer considered Amalia his wife nor Maria Elena his daughter.
Fr. Pessoa sharply admonished the witness for trying to sunder a tie that God and Holy Mother Church had made. He asked the witness if he believed himself a pope, with the power to dissolve a union.
The witness paled and crossed himself and begged the tribunal’s forgiveness, that he had spoken out of turn, and what he said was meant only as a form of jest: and Fr. Pessoa said he was of the opinion that jests should not be so near to a heresy, and then he called the next witness.
THE MAID of the Teixeira household was brought forward, Marta Madalena Antunes, age thirteen. She was asked as to the claims of virgin birth and of the disappearance of the infant, and she replied that, as she was assigned to sleep in the youngest girl’s room, she had seen nothing. Nor, upon being questioned, had she ever heard either of the accused speak of virgin births or angels.
THEN THE COOK of the Teixeira household was brought forward, one Clara Sales, widow, age thirty-one. She was asked as to the claims, and after being asked twice, once by a secular inquisitor and once by Msgr. Gomes, she said that she knew nothing. She was asked for details, and she replied, to the amusement of the two secular inquisitors, that details of nothing are still nothing. She was dismissed.
CLAUDIO TEIXEIRA, age ten, was called. He was asked about the claims, and he stated that one night he had seen a ball of light float through his room. When asked by Fr. Pessoa if it might have been a dream, he said that it could have been, but that he had pinched himself when he saw it, and it did seem that he was awake. He was asked about angels, but he said that he had never seen them, but that he had heard his sister cry out in the night, and could not get out of his bed to go save her, and that it very much distressed him to lie abed and hear his sister weep. On being asked why he did not go to his sister’s aid, he said that he was unable to move, although he tried, and that all he remembered was looking across the hall and seeing a light under his sister’s door.
Fr. Pessoa said that the experience sounded very much like a dream, in that the boy was helpless to awaken and frightened by something that, upon reflection, made no sense at all. The secular inquisitors agreed, and so the boy was dismissed.
THE TRIBUNAL called Ana Teixeira, age four. When queried about the claims, she said that she liked angels. Asked when she had seen angels, she said she had seen them in pictures. She said that when she died she wanted God to make her an angel so that she could fly. She was again queried as to her sister’s claims, and she said that she missed her mother. She was told to answer the question, and she said that she had forgotten what the question was. She was again asked about the birth of her sister’s infant, and she told the tribunal that she had a baby doll which her sister had given her. She asked to see her mother, and was told to relate all that she knew about the night her sister gave birth. She said that she was thirsty, and a jailer was ordered to bring her water. She said that she wanted her mother, and was told to answer the tribunal’s questions. She said that she had to use the chamber pot, and since no answers seemed to be forthcoming, she was excused.
BROUGHT before the tribunal, the herbalist Berenice Pinheiro, an unmarried woman twenty-seven years of age …
Her voice was soft and sweet, barely audible. Bernardo stopped his scribbling to look. Berenice Pinheiro had the dark exotic beauty of a Moor or a Judiazer; and she sat meekly, head lowered, peering at the tribunal through her lashes. She was poorly clothed, but neat enough, with one lone extravagance—and not one of vanity: the gold crucifix she wore round her neck.
This was the portrait of Mary—not the demented girl, not the saucy child. At the end of the table Father Manoel sat, his gaze so longing that Bernardo was struck by the possibility that the stories about them might be true.
… asked by a secular inquisitor if she had indeed examined the girl, and she said that she had, three times: once when the accused Maria Elena, had announced to her father of the pregnancy, once when she was quite heavy with child, and the third time after the infant was ripped from the womb. A secular inquisitor inquired after who she thought had taken the infant, and why the witness would use such a word to describe a birth, and she said she did not know who might have taken it, and that she used the word because of the violence done to the girl, that although all blood had been stanched, the maidenhead was tom apart. She verified that the girl had been intact some three weeks before the baby disappeared from her belly; and when asked how she could be certain there was an infant, she said that she had midwifed over fifty, and that she herself had felt the child move. The witness further stated that she fretted for the delivery, for the girl’s maidenhead was such that it would need the help of a knife to open it, and therefore the witness had cautioned both girl and mother to call her straightaway as the pains began.
The witness was questioned by Msgr. Gomes if such a maidenhead would resist ordinary congress, and the witness said that neither mere congress nor birth would be sufficient to tear it. He then asked if it was not possible that some sort of congress had taken place. She said that she could not judge, not being a man. She demonstrated, by marking the second joint on her finger, how deep the maidenhead lay.
At this, the two priests inquired of the secular inquisitors, who were married, if they thought such a congress possible, and one then asked the witness if the maidenhead was supple. She said that it was not, and that further, the girl suffered great pain when probed. The two secular inquisitors then conferred among themselves, reaching the opinion that, not being a satisfying nor well-joined length, the man would in his urgency either spill his seed elsewhere, or would not spill his seed at all.
Msgr. Gomes asked if anything could pass through the maidenhead, and the witness said that monthly blood passed. He then asked if seed could not pass as well. A secular inquisitor said that it was not customary for a man to hold a woman’s legs up in the air and pour his seed down in her, at which point a guard began to laugh so loudly that Msgr. Gomes banished him from the room and then cautioned the others that he had seen them smirking, and that he would not have it. Then Msgr. Gomes told the witness that she had been accused of being a Judiazer, and she said that she was not, that although she was daughter of new Christians, she believed with her whole heart that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that He had died upon the cross for all our sins. She said that, as the town believed her possessed of the evil eye, she could not show herself at Mass lest she cause a commotion; but that she confessed herself to Fr. Pessoa, who as inquisitor and Jesuit, was not superstitious, and would bless her and give her the Eucharist.
Msgr. Gomes then inquired of Fr. Pessoa if that was true, and he said that it was, that the first thing he did upon arriving in town was to see what care was needed for her soul. At that point, a secular inquisitor fell into such a fit of coughing that he excused himself from the room, and interrogation was halted for lunch.
Pessoa dared not address her, and so he passed by where Berenice sat, head lowered, waiting again to be called. He sneaked down the steps to the jail. A surprise. Soares w as not in the cell with his angels, but with the women. And he was not kneeling in prayer, but playing cards.
Pessoa watched at the bars until Senhora Teixeira spied him and stiffened.
Soares put down his cards. “Ah! Manoel! I am caught. No devotions this afternoon. Even so, games are a comfort.”
Near her mother’s feet Maria Elena lay, arms and legs drawn up as if all about were flames.
“Who wins?” Pessoa asked.
Soares threw up his hands. “Who can tell? Who can tell? We wager with lengths of straw, and I think that Marta plucks more from the piles about her and cheats.” Chuckling, he got up and dusted himself. “What o’clock?”
“Past one. And the tribunal is halted for lunch. Is there anything left at the rectory?”
He gave an apologetic shrug. “But there is fried rabbit in Marta’s basket, and cod cakes and three kinds of bread and cheese. Her father spoils us. Marta? Could Father Pessoa not have some of your rabbit?”
Pouting, Marta snatched up Soares’s cards, then took Dona Teixeira’s hand, and shuffled the deck.
“Bless you.” And before Pessoa could stop him—for Marta’s temper had stolen his appetite—Soares had gathered into a napkin a haunch, three cod cakes, and a loaf.
The guard opened the door. Soares brought the food out and led Passoa across the hall, hissing, “Let her give it, Manoel. For she is a spoiled and miserly little thing. The more frightened she becomes, the worse she acts, so that Dona Teixeira and I come near to pummeling her. How goes the tribunal?”
God's Fires Page 22
