The Scroll of Seduction

by Gioconda Belli

  In the middle of the week I made up a reason why I had to call my grandparents so that I could use the pay phone and call Manuel. He seemed disconcerted by my phone call. He said he wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t talk for long because he felt so distant it made me uneasy. I hated being so susceptible, but I had been like that ever since I was a little girl. Sometimes I was overwhelmed by the fear that because of my sorrows no one would fall in love with me. I wondered if perhaps Manuel was regretting what had happened. Perhaps the guilt I lacked was all weighing on his conscience. Maybe he’d say we shouldn’t see each other anymore. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep. I hardly ate. But on Friday I received a postcard with a picture of a Flemish tapestry.

  Lucía, I’ve had a lot of work this week. I would gladly exchange my desk for a green meadow where I could contemplate Juana’s life in Flanders at my leisure. At midday on Sunday, could you have lunch with me?

  Manuel.

  In the Church of San Cipriano, not far from school, they took confession on Saturday afternoons. I walked in and genuflected as I tried to make out the confessionals in the dim light. They looked like huge wooden armoires on either side of the church’s circular nave. I took a seat on the benches near one of them, where several old women were waiting their turn. I was immediately wrapped in the church’s cavelike, silent atmosphere. No matter the times I had told myself I wouldn’t be condemned for what I had done, first of all because hell probably didn’t even exist, and secondly because God would understand me, being there made me feel like a sinner, an impure Mary Magdalene. The effigy of Christ on the cross above the high altar was like a higher authority, rebuking me with his agonized presence. I held my head in my hands. At that moment, my repentance was genuine. I wanted to believe that I was being honest when I told myself I wouldn’t do it again, that I would return, like the prodigal daughter, to the path of righteousness. But my mind jumped from one thing to the next, preoccupied with figuring out how to tell the priest. “A man seduced me, Father, and I let him,” or “Father, I confess to having lost my virginity.” The first version seemed like it would be more palatable for the priest, less incriminating for me, but not altogether honest. That was as far as I had gotten when it came time for my turn. My hands were sweating as I knelt and repeated the set phrases of the Ave Maria. The confessional was very dark and smelled of old, rancid wood, of musty, spilled sins. The priest was hidden behind a short purple curtain, but I could see his shiny shoes through a crack.

  “Come, child, tell me your sins,” the deep, masculine voice said, after asking me how long it had been since my last confession.

  “I made love with my boyfriend, Father.”

  There was a pause. The priest cleared his throat. I dug my fingernails into my arms, which were crossed over the wooden ledge below the little window.

  “Did you do everything you could to resist temptation?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it. This force just…came over me,” I faltered, not knowing what else to say.

  “Tell me all about it. Tell me what happened.”

  I couldn’t do it. I ran out, flustered. It was ridiculous, to be expected to confess such intimate things. What right did priests have to hear one’s most private affairs? In the end I went to the confessional in the school chapel. I confessed to Father Justo for having impure thoughts and desires, sure that God would be able to decipher my code.

  Sunday, rather than hail a taxi, Manuel led me down the side streets near Paseo de la Castellana to a small, cozy restaurant with low ceilings and adobe arches. They served tapas. He ordered mussels, Spanish tortilla, Serrano ham, cheese, olives, mushrooms, and I don’t know what else. To drink, he ordered the house red wine. He was acting normal, just like always, as if nothing had happened. I was a little disconcerted. But seeing him so unemotional I thought maybe that was the way adults acted, so I played my part.

  I noticed he looked pale and had bags under his eyes.

  “Is everything okay, Manuel? You look tired.”

  “I didn’t tell you when you called, but I’ve had to take care of my Aunt Águeda all week. She’s normally very healthy, but when she gets sick she becomes absolutely helpless and gets in a bad mood. I’ve hardly been at my apartment these past few days. Fortunately, the library where I work is in my family’s home. It’s a beautiful house, a museum of the history, the shame, and the secrets of my family.”

  “And is your aunt better now?”

  “Yes. She had an ear infection that ended up causing labyrinthitis. That’s an inner-ear inflammation that makes you lose your sense of balance.”

  “Why didn’t your Aunt Águeda ever get married?”

  “Because of me, most likely,” he said somberly. “She’s always devoted herself to me. You’ll have to meet her,” he added in a lighter tone. “She’s like a magpie hording her treasures. I suspect she has a few she hides even from me. Once, when I was a teenager, she told me about a trunk that belonged to Queen Juana that she’d seen as a child. I only recalled that recently when I came across references in some old documents to a trunk the queen kept hidden in her room that contained her most cherished objects. I asked Águeda if that might have been the one she’d seen, but she seemed not to remember anything and denied ever having mentioned it. I don’t know what to think, but I’m intrigued by the possibility that she really does know where it is. If it exists, she’ll have to tell me one day.”

  We were having coffee. Manuel stirred sugar into his espresso pensively.

  “Just imagine if you find it. I wonder how it would feel, peeking at things she hid centuries ago,” I said.

  He put his hand on top of mine and squeezed so hard that I withdrew it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, flicking back a lock of white hair that was always hanging down in his eyes. “You don’t know how much it means to me to have you take part in this investigation with me. Some people live entirely in the present, they hurl themselves into the chaos of existence as if there were nothing beyond their senses. But others among us don’t see time as linear, we see it as a constant state of becoming, with the only division between past, present, and future being artificially established by human emotional needs. For a historian, studying reality the way someone from a specific period of time perceives it is like exploring the unknown depths of the ocean for a marine biologist. As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing more exciting than uncovering the mysteries of human behavior. The Marquises of Denia deceived Juana for years, lying to her about what was going on outside the four walls of Tordesillas. Ferdinand the Catholic, her father, had been dead for four years before Juana heard the news. The marquis tried to convince her that her ill father had retired to a convent. He instructed her to write to him. He wanted to use her letters as proof of her insanity. Not only that, but in order to persuade her not to leave the palace, they told her the plague had spread throughout town and organized bogus funeral processions all day beneath her window. Did they take pleasure in being the architects of this farce? They must have felt some kind of pleasure. But what kind? Do you know that poor Catalina, the posthumous daughter of Juana and Philippe, who grew up imprisoned with her mother, used to spend all day at a palace window tossing coins down to the children below so that they would run over and she could at least watch them play? You’ll learn the rest of the story soon enough. We’ve hardly even got past the passion of their first meeting. The body is so simple, Lucía. It’s the purest thing we have. The mind, on the other hand, is full of twists and turns. The mind is the real labyrinth. And in real life there is no Ariadne, no silver thread to find your way back. It’s just you and the Minotaur, panting. And he’s always close by.”

  AT LUNCH AND ON THE WAY BACK TO HIS HOUSE, WE DIDN’T TALK about what happened last Sunday. Personally I thought it was rude–given that I’d lost my virginity–that he didn’t even bother to ask me whether or not I had felt uncomfortable. But maybe men thought women’s discomfort was something trivial, something that didn�
�t merit comment. Or maybe he thought it was impolite to ask. The other disquieting possibility was that maybe he thought it had happened between Juana of Castile and Philippe the Handsome rather than the two of us.

  CHAPTER 8

  The clock turns back again. I don the gown. I take my seat. The Madrid afternoon fades away beneath the balcony.

  JUANA’S UNIVERSE WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN AFTER HER FIRST night with Philippe in that monastic cell turned makeshift wedding chamber.

  DISCOVERING THE PLEASURES OF MY BODY MADE ME QUESTION everything that so far I had considered certain in life. There was no place in the sensations I had experienced in bed for the guilt and damnation or the punishment associated with the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. If the nuns heard my cries there was no way of knowing what they must have thought, because Philippe encouraged me to groan and purr at will and he roared and cried out, and we both laughed out loud at our own shamelessness. It was hard for me to believe I was the same person I had been the day before. In just a few hours, all of the modesty and reserve I’d stored up in my lifetime had disappeared. I surrendered so willingly to pleasure and lost my inhibitions so thoroughly that people might have guessed me the daughter of a courtesan, not of the Catholic Queen.

  In the morning, sitting naked on the bed with my legs crossed as I toyed with his soft, sleeping member–a distant cousin of the dragon who was quietly regaining his fire–Philippe told me about the life I would lead in Flanders. Beauty, he said, was power’s greatest reward, and living in his country I would soon forget the narrow-minded Spanish mentality. “They sent you here surrounded by spies, priests, soldiers, and severe, ascetic handmaidens. But here, as you have seen, the terrain is smooth and flat, misty and green. I’m going to teach you to enjoy life, to savor wine and yourself. Next to me your strong body will know the pleasures of being alive and sated. Your sense of touch will learn about silk and the intricate patterns of Bruges lace. Your eyes will surrender to the light of our painters. They will make you see why we sing the praises of creation. You will see how the colored threads in a tapestry can be as alive as the life they portray. You will eat from sets of dishes whose every plate is a work of art. You will see, Juana, the life you will discover with me. It will make you forget the bonfires where your people burn the poor devils accused of heresy. You will forget the intolerance of your lineage, but you will have to consent to being surrounded by our nobles, to being separated from the court you brought from Spain, the court that cannot comprehend our splendor, that is even suspicious of it.” He had placed his hand on my stomach and his index finger traced circles around my navel like a horseman circling a castle’s moat. I so much wanted then to hand over to him–whom after all I was supposed to submit to–the reins of my life so that he would show me what lay beneath the obscurity attributed to pleasure at the Castilian court. We spent all day in bed. He rolled around in my hair, fed me his seed, he knew me like I could never get to know myself. At night he called for wine, bread, and fruit. He used my sex like a dish. We bit and tasted each other. He refused to let me sleep because he said he wanted to see the light of the rising sun shine on my skin, and so it was that we watched the dawn of a new day nude, exhausted, and insanely happy.

  Manuel too brought me something to eat in bed. Unfortunately, he said, I would have to see the new day dawn from my room, but we could play at making a night of the afternoon.

  I was naked, lying on my stomach, still panting, when Juana left the convent and said good-bye to Marie de Soissons.

  I LET MY EYES EMBRACE THE SILHOUTTE OF THE ABBEY IN THE FIRST morning light. Its gray walls appeared to be a liquid substance blending in the mist with the subdued color of the atmosphere. The nuns in their dark habits, standing in the doorway, lifted their arms, waving good-bye. Philippe’s and my horses headed the procession at a trot. Shortly before Antwerp, we would separate so that Philippe could accompany his sister Marguerite to Arnemuiden, where she would board a ship to Spain. Marguerite had come to Lier to make my acquaintance. When she met me I was dressed only in a loose, white nightshirt, because my husband didn’t lose time asking me whether I minded if she came into our bedchamber. I thought she would make Juan happy because, like her brother, Marguerite was full of vitality and contagious energy. All my fragile brother had to do was to allow himself to be loved. I could imagine how amazing it would be for him to be faced with the exhuberance of the Austrias and my sister-in-law’s golden splendor. The letters I received from Spain, after the wedding, confirmed my intuition. Juan, who was only two years older than me, had surrendered himself passionately to her love.

  Philippe admired my riding skills on the cavalcade to Antwerp, and he had the woman who had been his governess–Jeanne de Commines, Madame de Hallewin–ride beside me. He told me he thought she should be in charge of the ladies in my court and be at my side to instruct me in the protocol and dealings within the Burgundian court. No one could do it better than her, he said. Madame de Hallewin wore a pointy hat with a delicate veil hanging from the tip. The hat–like all of her attire–was done in the latest French fashion, something that inspired in me an instant prejudice, which I tried to dismiss so as not to offend her or displease Philippe. Notwithstanding her French-style wardrobe, Madame de Hallewin had to her advantage the fact that she spoke Spanish perfectly. She was a middle-aged woman, with very fair skin, an angular face and kind, earthy green eyes. Her wide, well-defined mouth diminished somewhat the overall impression she gave of being a sexless angel. I told myself I had to get to know her better and not be guided just by my instinct. Given that she had been Philippe’s governess and considering how charming he was, there was no reason to think she wasn’t worthy of my friendship and trust. As she began to speak about the festivities that were organized in Brussels, Ghent, and other cities to celebrate my wedding, I caught Beatriz de Bobadilla on my right, glancing over distrustfully. I took the first opportunity, during a stop to rest, to go to her and tell her about Philippe’s provisions.

  “I will have two first ladies,” I said, “because I am certainly not planning to renounce your company. You must not think that this madame can take your place, in my confidence or my heart.”

  “Be careful, Juana,” she said. “I have the impression that your husband wishes to surround you with Flemish nobles and cast aside the Spaniards. It seems rather underhanded to me. Do not allow yourself to be blinded by love.”

  It wasn’t only love that blinded me. In the following months, the inhabitants of the Low Countries received Philippe and I in a series of joyous entries to the principal cities. The colors, the revelry, the joyfulness of those festivities–despite the gray skies and light rain falling like a veil over the Flemish landscape–filled me with an eager desire to take into my heart a country that was now mine. The bliss my flesh experienced every night incited me to rebel against the remnants of Castilian rigidity that prevailed in the retinue that accompanied me who continued to be loyal to my mother. I did not object when Philippe began to substitute them for noblemen and ladies he held in his confidence, people whose customs were better suited to our lifestyle. I even neglected my duties to some of those who, having risked their lives and served me faithfully, had accompanied me on the dangerous crossing from Laredo to Flanders. Some say soldiers in the thousands froze to death that winter, awaiting fair weather to set sail with Marguerite of Austria. I take that to be an exaggeration. But that is what they said. Beatriz reproached me. My confessor Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa reproached me and also complained about my lack of interest in religious devotions. He tried my patience, with his straitlaced prudishness and his severity, his discourses claiming that my subjects showed more interest in drinking well than in living the “good life,” as if food and drink were forbidden pleasures, as if they were sinful. After only one year, my royal household had been restructured in line with Burgundian protocol, and only eighteen of the initial ninety-eight members of my Spanish entourage remained. With no income of my own, I could do little to retai
n them. The terms of my marriage stipulated that Philippe would maintain my servants and provide me with whatever I needed. And he did. But given that he was paying their wages, he also decided who they were. Beatriz complained. She said she could not understand how my parents could have agreed to such an arrangement. The nobles who returned to Spain must have brought my royal parents this news, because they sent an ambassador, Fray Tomás de Matienzo, to the Low Countries. His words made clear that they blamed me for the exodus of my Spanish courtiers, that they condemned my actions, and disapproved of my behavior. Independence had gone to my head like liquor. I still had not realized that my destiny had simply changed hands, from my parents to my husband. In Philippe’s hands, all I saw were instruments that stroked and strummed me, making music emanate from within me. He was quite skilled at making me think his decisions were made in accordance with the same principles as mine. So when I obeyed his wishes I felt I was affirming my own and proving the existence of my own criteria. I had no doubt that I owed Spain my loyalty, but I thought that it would better serve the aims of my country to have the Flemish accept me as their sovereign, to have them see me as living proof of our respective countries’ common interests. To think I could set up a Spanish island in Flanders was outlandish and utterly unrealistic. But for my parents not to understand that and to send Fray Tomás to scold me both hurt and infuriated me.