The Scroll of Seduction

by Gioconda Belli

  But the storm showed no signs of abating. The captain came belowdeck with increasing frequency to inform us of one mishap after another. We had lost the mast and there was no sign of the other ships. On one occasion he asked for permission to throw part of the cargo overboard. Gómez de Fuensalida agreed, and I heard him order the crew to throw the prostitutes who were down with the horses overboard as well, since surely this storm was Divine retribution.

  Seeing these men behave like cowards, willing to commit such a crime, was more than I could tolerate. I stood and told the captain that on pain of death, which I personally would ensure was meted out the moment we reached dry land, I prohibited him from committing such an atrocity. “You will not throw one single woman overboard unless accompanied by those who so disgracefully brought them onto the ship, to our great misfortune, beginning with the king, my lord, who is no doubt responsible for this arrangement.”

  The captain thanked me with his eyes and took his leave; neither Fuensalida nor Philippe dared contradict me. Among the sailors, I gained respect for being the only passenger not to vomit and whimper and lose all self-control. They were stunned at my composure.

  On the third day of sailing off course and feeling the ship heave to and fro as if it were being carried by a herd of stampeding elephants, the storm finally died down. We could make out other ships in our party, but few were in any condition to carry on. After improvising sails and making what minimal repairs he could, the captain decided to chart a course for the English coast, where we could seek help.

  On reaching Portsmouth we found we had lost seven ships. I saw the women I had ordered off the ship in Flushing totter ashore, their faces still distorted by fear. Watching them disembark was mortifying. I locked myself in my cabin without speaking to anyone. I no longer knew how to react in the face of so many humiliations. I had to fulfill my role as a queen, but Philippe toyed with me. He laid traps at every opportunity, belittling me in front of the entourage that accompanied us. Faced with his behavior, I reacted with the desperation I felt at being so unloved. How could I believe his words of contrition, his affections, his declarations of love offered amid the lashing storm? It took so little for my heart to burst with joy and hope, only to deflate soon after, spent, inert, and airless. I hated myself for being so naive, for wanting willfully to believe him, for forgiving his insults and affronts time and again, for letting him put me through such torment. I could not comprehend why I was so disposed to believe that things between us would go back to being the way they once were. I refused to consider his offenses in the same light I did the tiniest sign of love. A simple gesture was enough for my hopes to embark gleefully and set sail on the high seas as if favorable winds were everlasting. In a flash, I forgot the affronts that, hours earlier, seemed a sequence of horrors that could never be forgiven.

  The ship’s captain made sure, during those days, that I was comfortable and well served. I suspect he might have even fallen in love with me. He looked at me with great tenderness and admiration. And I was well aware that, as a seaman, he valued my bravery in the storm over the gossip and rumors that the royal escorts might have wanted him to believe. And so he faithfully fulfilled my wish, communicating to Philippe my intention to remain at the port while he and the others traveled to Windsor in the carriages that Henry VII had sent for us, once he heard that misfortune had led to our fleet docking on his shores.

  I would have been happy to remain on board, enjoying the company of the captain, who was a cultured man with whom I had many agreeable conversations, had not my sister Catalina–whom the English called Katherine–come personally to find me. Seeing her after nearly ten years of separation was a great joy. Poor Catalina. She looked awful: thin and bleak, her face permanently marked by sadness and displeasure. The widow of Arthur of Wales, she was now engaged to the future Henry VIII, but she was dreadfully unhappy at the prospect of this marriage. “Why can we not end up with sweet men like that captain, so gentle and simple and handsome?” she lamented. The princes in our destinies are cause for nothing but tears and sorrows. She was shocked that I was still beautiful. After five children, I still had a girlish figure and my face was as yet unwrinkled and free of that scowl that seemed glued to her face like a permanent mask. We cried together for our mother. And it was a great consolation to me, despite all the years gone by, to be with someone I knew would not betray me and with whom I could confide.

  When we said good-bye, Catalina remarked that her father-in-law, the king, had been very impressed with me. One of his ladies overheard him say that he was astonished anyone could accuse me of being mad when he had judged me to be so sensible, so self-possessed. If only he could have a queen like me in his palace. “You must be careful,” my sister warned. “They accuse you of being mad, but our father seems to be showing more signs of lunacy, marrying Germaine de Foix, a woman younger than either of us, just to engender an heir so that he–instead of you–can occupy the throne of Aragon.” Catalina was sure that Ferdinand, being a good Aragonese, would have no qualms about allying himself with Philippe against me in order to control the crown of Castile. I, on the other hand, confessed that I trusted he would protect me from Philippe’s ambitions. If he did, I would be happy to rule with him, as our mother had. I was not prepared to allow Philippe to rule in Spain at my expense. Catalina feared the cunning of the pair of them. In struggles for power, women were always the ones who lost. Not even our mother had succeeded in keeping Ferdinand from meddling in my realm.

  Catalina and I had precious little time together. All too quickly, her father-in-law called for her return to London, after the banquets and ceremonies at Windsor Castle. During those days, the king had been negotiating her dowry with my father and surely would not wish for me, as the next queen of Castile, to intervene on my sister’s behalf. Before leaving, she arranged for me to go from Windsor to Arundel, in the English countryside. Her friends, the Dukes of Exeter, graciously lent me their castle so that I could rest and recover from my turbulent journey. After a week of idyllic repose among courteous, obliging people who treated me with all the respect a queen deserved, I felt much better. I was in a good mood when Philippe arrived to meet me. I forgave him, as I had so many times before. He was passionate and genteel, as if the English air had somehow filled him with sweetness and chivalry. I had no idea that this was to be our final happy, peaceful time together. It was then that we conceived my last daughter, whom I would name Catalina, my fellow prisoner, the posthumous daughter of my beloved Philippe the Handsome.

  IT WAS NEARLY FIVE O’CLOCK WHEN MANUEL BROUGHT ME BACK TO the twentieth century, telling me it was time for me to get changed and go back to school. When I pulled Juana’s dress over my head and stood in front of the fireplace, he took my hands in his to pull me close. He gazed at my naked body in the firelight. His brows knit, he stared intently and took one of my breasts in his hand. Slowly, he rubbed the other hand over my belly, his index finger tracing the path of fine, dark hair that had grown from my stomach down to my pubic hair in a mysterious straight line.

  “So you say you haven’t gotten your period. How late are you?”

  “Ten days,” I said. I insisted he shouldn’t worry. It was probably just hormones; maybe my cycle wasn’t fully in sync yet, so there were irregularities.

  He ran his hand over my stomach and looked at my breasts again.

  “Look how dark your nipples are. Good God, Lucía, what have I done to you?” Suddenly he was anguished, full of nervous energy. He lit a cigarette and paced in front of the fireplace, running his hands through his hair over and over again.

  “Come on, Manuel. Don’t be like that. It’s probably nothing, I already told you….”

  “I studied medicine for two years, Lucía,” he interrupted, turning toward me with an intent look.” And I think I can safely say that you’re pregnant. You’re showing all the signs: amenorrhea, swollen breasts, darkened nipples, and that dark line on your stomach.” He dropped onto the sofa and cradled hi
s head in his hands. “This is insane. It’s unforgivable. I will never forgive myself for this. Ever.”

  “It can’t be,” I said, less sure now. “We took so many precautions. You were so careful.”

  “Well, Lucía, it seems you’re like Juana in more ways than one. You couldn’t be more fertile if you tried. And look how much you resemble her.” His eyes shone strangely as he gazed at me; it was a look that bore through me and into the past. “I’m sure you’ll have no trouble giving birth, either, just like her. But we’ll take care of everything, Lucía, don’t you worry. Águeda and I will take care of everything. You’ll have everything you need.”

  “But hold on, Manuel. Slow down for a moment. Don’t jump so quickly to such serious conclusions. Let’s wait a few days.”

  “We can wait if you want,” he said, standing as he glanced at the clock that marked the time for me to be back at school, “but I’m right, you’ll see. You won’t get your period, you can bet on it. Come on, get dressed and I’ll drive you back to school.”

  I dressed hurriedly, perturbed and confused. Then I went to say good-bye to his aunt Águeda, who was in the kitchen polishing a collection of silver objects she’d laid out on the dining room table.

  “I’m so glad you’re going to spend Christmas with us, sweetheart,” she said. “I haven’t made Christmas Eve dinner for years! Your friend Manuel is very disinclined to engage in any kind of religious celebrations, and I don’t tend to have the energy to put up a fight. But with you around, things will be different. We can cook together! We’ll have a grand old time, you’ll see.”

  I nodded with a rote smile, unable to stop thinking about how all our lives would be turned upside down if Manuel’s instincts were correct. I could not possibly imagine what might happen. I refused to entertain the possibility.

  CHAPTER 18

  My period never came. I began to doubt myself; Manuel’s certainty had become contagious. I was experiencing new symptoms: nausea, tender breasts. If I squeezed my nipples, a whitish liquid oozed from the aureole. The cold of winter had seeped into my bones. My teeth chattered constantly and I could hardly concentrate on my exams. The nausea would come and go with no rhyme or reason. I avoided Mother Luisa Magdalena’s every perceptive look. I thought of Juana. Manuel’s words haunted me: I not only looked like her, but I was as fertile as she was. Again and again I wondered what to do. I was obsessed with avoiding the embarrassment of the nuns finding out I had gone astray. The only person in the world I could share this information with was Isis. I wondered if instead of spending Christmas with the Denias, I should go to New York. Isis would look after me. And she wouldn’t tell my grandparents. She and I could come up with a story. But Manuel was the father. I couldn’t just pretend he had nothing to do with it. I fell into a kind of trance, an absent presence. I wandered around pretending that neither my body nor my womb belonged to me. At night, I’d close my eyes tight and concentrate, hoping to return to my life as a student before I met Manuel, before that male Scheherazade had seduced me, made me feel I was soaring on the wings of a naive romanticism. I refused to entertain any alluring fantasies, telling myself that a man as old as Manuel would never be the father of any child of mine. Children? Me? During the boarders’ mass, I would pray with all my soul for God to remove that child from inside me. “Father, take this cup from me.” And then immediately, I would repent. I felt vile and despicable for wanting to destroy a creature that deserved nothing but love. In my head, I ran though all the scenarios–during class, in the lunchroom, at recess. I’d never graduate. And with just a few months to go. I thought of stories about girls my age who bandaged their stomachs so no one could tell and kept going to class. The idea of not graduating–of quitting school–mortified me. And the only place I could imagine living with a baby was in New York, someplace where I could be anonymous and live like a character out of a Charles Dickens novel: a life of tragedy, misery, and shame.

  Not being able to express my anguish to anyone was almost unbearable. I couldn’t wait for classes to end on Friday so I could see Manuel and find out what he had in mind. He was a responsible adult, an experienced man. Surely he’d know what to do.

  Mother Luisa Magdalena was very attentive to me those days. Her nun’s intuition kept her in tune to the moods and needs of all the students, and she must have sensed that I was going through some sort of crisis. Still she of course would never have guessed that it was anything of the order that–had anyone at school found out–would have caused as much outrage as earthquakes did in my country, where in seconds entire cities were demolished, the landscape altered forever. I could see the rumor spreading through school like wildfire, the faces of the nuns and students reacting in horror. It was as if I could hear the chorus of parents’ voices, at home, as they asked over and over, in hushed tones, how something like this could have happened in our exclusive, respectable young ladies’ school.

  I wasn’t ashamed to cry like a baby in front of Mother Luisa Magdalena. My tears flowed so profusely that they reminded me of my hometown during torrential rains. The approach of Christmas always affected the girls who were far from home, and I was telling the truth when I bawled, saying that I just couldn’t get used to the fact that my mother wouldn’t be there for any of the major occasions of my life. She wouldn’t be there for my graduation, or when I got married, or for the birth of my first child. Mother Luisa Magdalena wasn’t suspicious of my grief, although she did admit to being surprised that it had come on so suddenly.

  “Tell me, child, what’s brought this on all of a sudden? It’s understandable, of course, but has something happened to make your sorrow surface now?”

  I blamed it on the Christmas smells of pine needles and cinnamon, and the end of the semester, which made me think that the year would soon be over, and I’d have to leave behind the school that had been a sort of womb for me, a refuge. She consoled me as best she could, but she wasn’t excessively concerned about my tears. It was her opinion that I was finally coming to terms with the tragedy of my having become an orphan. She saw my grief as a sign that I was at last facing up to my pain and therefore on the road to recovery. She even thought that my relationship with the Denias–feeling the warmth of a family–might have penetrated my defenses and brought my emotions to the surface.

  On Saturday Manuel was waiting for me as I walked out of school. He looked pale and had bags under his eyes. He started walking beside me without a word, after giving me an awkward hug. At seventeen, I could not conceive of how a man of his age could possibly be more upset than me. And yet confusion and uncertainty were plainly inscribed on his face and in his silence. It was cold, but we didn’t take the metro to his apartment or to Águeda’s house. We got out at the station by Puerta de Alcalá and walked.

  When he finally spoke, it was to tell me what I could already plainly see. That he couldn’t sleep, and did nothing but think about that problem (that was how we’d christened my pregnancy). He was so sorry to have been so stupid as to believe his method would work. His previous relationships had been with older women who had taken care of those things themselves. Contraceptives had just come into use, but the drugs were new, and neither their effectiveness nor their side effects had been proven; afraid of harming my young body, he hadn’t wanted to buy them for me. I should know that there were only two alternatives: I could interrupt the pregnancy by having an abortion, or I could have the baby. Abortion was illegal in Spain, but he could take me to London the very next day if that was what I decided. As far as he knew, it was a simple procedure. On Tuesday or Wednesday I’d be back in class as if nothing had happened.

  Instinctively, my hands flew to my belly. The mere thought of an abortion had made my muscles contract. He noticed and said nothing. We’d sat down on a park bench. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

  “Or would you rather we get married? That’s the other option,” he said. “You leave school, we get married and live with Aunt Águeda.”
/>
  “I don’t want any scandals breaking out at school. My biggest worry is that the nuns will find out. I don’t want to get married. Not like this.”

  “You’ll be on vacation next week. You’ll come to our house and we’ll think it over better there. We’ll have more time.”

  I wanted the earth to swallow me up, to disappear and not have to explain anything to anyone, not have to go through the unbelievable shame of it all. If no one found out, it would be as if it hadn’t happened, and I’d have more time to get used to the idea, to consider whether or not I actually wanted to marry Manuel. If the idea of telling my grandparents or even Isis was troubling, having to tell Mother Luisa Magdalena seemed unbearable. Completely unbearable.

  “You don’t have to marry me, Manuel. You just have to help me.”

  I realized I sounded like an actress trying to stick to her lines. I was trying to imagine what my mother would have done, what my grandparents would have said. Rather than actually think about the consequences of my pregnancy, I was more worried about the present, as if once the child was born all the problems would be miraculously solved.

  “Let’s deal with the problem in stages,” I said. “The first one is to make sure no one finds out. Later we can deal with the rest.”

  “The ‘rest,’ as you call it, is the most important thing,” Manuel said, smiling sarcastically. “Your grandparents, Isis, and the nuns finding out is the least of our concerns….”

  “Maybe for you; not for me.”

  THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ÁGUEDA SHOWED UP AT SCHOOL, having volunteered to help set up for the yuletide festivities. The second I saw her at the door, staring at me, I knew that Manuel had told her what was happening. She treated me like a member of the family–with affection and resolve, but especially with a sense of propriety. The nuns would be more comfortable with the idea of me spending the Christmas vacation with them if they knew her better, she said. I was surprised to see her chatting so naturally with the groups of mothers planning the Christmas party.