The Scroll of Seduction

by Gioconda Belli

  The day of the party, she showed up with cookies, cakes, and tablecloths for the tables where we’d be selling our baked goods. The idea was to raise money to buy presents for children in the slums where the nuns did their charity work. For the first time since I’d been there, I mingled with my classmates’ families, accompanied by adults who were taking care of me: my adoptive “aunt and uncle.” Their presence freed me, albeit temporarily, from the stigma of feeling like a lonely orphan, an object of pity; that was what had always made me the saddest in previous years, feeling like that amid the revelry of all those happy families.

  When the party was over, aunt and uncle lingered in the doorway with the other parents, all the conversations and good-byes filling the entrance hall, as Mother Luisa Magdalena thanked them effusively for offering me their hospitality. It would do me a world of good, she joked, to spend a Christmas without being surrounded by purple habits and nuns for once. Finally, she turned me over to their care, happy and at ease.

  I hugged Mother Luisa Magdalena tight when we said good-bye. I’d put all my clothes into my suitcase, leaving just a few things behind so as not to arouse suspicion. Unless the pregnancy was a false alarm, I wouldn’t be coming back, I wouldn’t see Mother Luisa Magdalena again. I never imagined how distressed I’d feel, walking out of that tiled corridor for the last time. I thought about Margarita, who had left early that year to spend Christmas with her family in Guatemala. I thought of Piluca and Marina and that portion of my innocent and troubled life that would linger on there, floating above the garden beside the silent pine tree, the still fountain, and that lovingly stern nun.

  We were almost silent on the way to calle Cid. Manuel wouldn’t let me carry anything. He took the books from my arms, and my toiletries bag, and pulled my suitcase across the tiled garden.

  Almost the moment we walked in, Águeda asked us to sit down at the kitchen table, before I went up to unpack. I hadn’t been expecting this.

  “I’m probably a strange old lady, Lucía. Perhaps I should be dismayed and reproach you both for having gone off the rails as you did. I’ve already told Manuel that I find his conduct, more than yours, reprehensible. Quite clearly, it is not fitting behavior. But what’s done is done, so what can I say? I’m touched at the news. I don’t know why, but ever since you first walked in the door, I knew you’d come to stay. I could feel it. And now you’ll be one of us. And Manuel, whom I thought would be the last in our line, will have someone to carry on his name. With any luck it’ll be a boy, another Marquis of Denia. You’re probably frightened, but you’ve got nothing to worry about. Manuel and I will take good care of you; we’ll make sure you’re comfortable, that you have everything you need.”

  “I can’t go back to school,” I said, staring down at the floor. My cheeks must have been red because I could feel my face burning.

  “Of course not; imagine the scandal,” she replied.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. Having this conversation with Águeda conferred a sense of reality to the matter I wasn’t ready to accept, at least not with the certainty of my hosts. I sat sliding my mother’s pearl ring on and off my finger.

  “I’ve thought about this,” Manuel said gravely, methodically, his elbows on the table as he pressed his fingertips together. “When Christmas vacation is over, you’ll stay on here. When the nuns call us to ask why you haven’t returned to school, we’ll say that we put you in a taxi back to the convent and that’s the last we saw of you.”

  “But what about my grandparents, and Isis, and Mother Luisa? They’ll come looking for me. They’ll investigate. They’ll call the police.” I wanted to say it was a harebrained idea, but I contained myself.

  “Wait, let me finish. You’ll write a letter to your grandparents, to the nuns, to Isis. You decide. We have time to think about its phrasing. You’ll say you’re safe and sound, that’s the main point. Then you can say whatever occurs to you: that you fell in love with a boy and you’re eloping, that you don’t want to go back to school. It happens all the time. It’s not that far-fetched. They won’t like it, they won’t agree, but at least they’ll know you’re safe. They’ll interpret it as the recklessness of youth. After all, you’re not a baby anymore. My mother left home at your age.”

  “That’s right,” said Águeda. “And nobody looked for her.”

  “We can get married if you prefer. I’ve already told you that,” Manuel murmured.

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t like to get married under these circumstances.”

  Every time Manuel brought up marriage it gave me a start, a surge of adrenaline. I said no almost automatically, reflexively. I was sure I didn’t want to get married. I had no doubt about that.

  Águeda interrupted.

  “There’s no need to rush your decisions. I can be modern about this sort of thing. I don’t need formalities to legitimize the family’s offspring.”

  “For the time being, I’m most worried about the scandal,” I said. “I don’t want anyone to find out. I’d die of shame. I like Manuel’s idea. It might work.” I told myself I’d think about it later, when I was alone. The story they were proposing I use as an alibi didn’t fit my character. But maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched. Those kinds of things did happen.

  “Eventually you’ll show up with your baby and you’ll see how powerful a child’s smile can be,” Águeda said philosophically, perhaps recalling when Manuel first appeared in her life.

  I couldn’t picture myself with a baby. Maybe there’d be no baby. It seemed to me that Manuel and his aunt were getting a little ahead of themselves.

  Águeda got up. I was surprised to see her take a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. We should toast, she said. A child was a blessing. And we toasted. I still felt as if I were in a fog, dismayed at seeing myself catapulted into some strange world. I didn’t know if Manuel’s plan would work, but there was still time to think about it. We’d see. Besides, there was still a chance that I’d get my period any day now. Maybe the whole pregnancy thing was just a false alarm. I, for one, still could not accept it.

  Manuel walked me up to my room. He said that the next day he’d walk me through the house so I could choose some more furniture for my room, given that this time I’d be staying much longer.

  “I want you to feel completely comfortable and at ease. Like a princess.” He smiled, his old carefree expression returning for a moment. I smiled too incredulous that his obsession seemed perfectly intact, even at a time like this. I followed my train of thought as he walked over to the window and looked out at the garden, pensive. I’d look beautiful pregnant, he said out of the blue. I’d look majestic. And I’d understand Juana even better.

  “Let’s keep going with Juana’s story after dinner. It’ll do us good,” he added.

  Águeda made me a special lunch with quail and wild rice. At one point, she began to speak of her religious convictions. She said that the mystery of conception, regardless of its circumstances, was something to be celebrated. How many young girls, scared of what they had done, went to London for abortions, tarnishing their souls with a crime that would stay with them the rest of their days, she decreed. That was why it was important for me to know that they would protect me and not let anything bad happen, either to me or my baby. It was inevitable that she felt partially responsible, for not having realized that our relationship was carnal as well as platonic, but given that it was too late, there was nothing else to be done. She repeated that as far as she was concerned, any descendant of the Denia line would be received not only with love, but with joy. After all, the child was innocent and had no reason to suffer for his parents’ sins.

  “You will go to confession, Lucía, won’t you?” she asked, serving me more rice.

  I nodded so as not to contradict her. There was no sense telling her about what had happened last time I went to confession.

  Manuel and I exchanged complicit glances. Then Águeda
said, quite demurely, that she was a little embarrassed to ask, but that as long as Manuel and I were not married and were living under the same roof, she’d like us to humor her and keep sleeping in separate bedrooms.

  “Oh, Auntie, come on.”

  “I’m old-fashioned, what can I say? I know it’s silly. But when it comes to important matters, I can put my beliefs aside. I’m not a prude.”

  “You’re right, Águeda. Don’t worry,” I said, feeling my face burn with shame.

  “And there’s one last thing. You might think it’s excessive, but I think it’s essential: you mustn’t leave the house. Your body will start changing soon and the shop girls will all notice, all the women in the neighborhood will notice, they don’t miss a trick. It’s best if they don’t even know you’re here, so they can’t identify you now or–more importantly–later on.”

  “Do you agree, Manuel? I mean, I’m not even showing at all yet.”

  “Aunt Águeda is right. For this plan to work we need discipline and discretion. Lots of discretion. You have to be invisible. Trust us, Lucía.”

  “Now, let’s not talk anymore about this. Look at this dessert! Go on, enjoy it. It’s caramel custard,” Águeda said.

  After dinner we retired to the library and, as if nothing had changed in the slightest, I put on my Juana dress and Manuel took up where we’d left off with her story.

  CHAPTER 19

  The constant ebb and flow of our love, the sudden way in which we went from harmony to sworn enemity, unsettled me no end. Inside my mind and body, reason and illusion battled it out, leaving me listless, exhausted, moored to such deep sadness within I thought I’d never find release. When we reached port at La Coruña on April 27, 1506, I still had no idea that Catalina had been conceived. Our original plan had been to land farther south, in Seville. There Philippe would meet with the Duke of Medina Sidonia and other nobles to advance toward Toledo for a meeting with my father, backed up not only by his German army but also by forces supplied by the Castilian nobles themselves. But the gales conspired against this plan. We were on the verge of being shipwrecked. Four days our captain sailed off course, and we were forced to change plans and disembark in La Coruña. As soon as people realized the identity of the passengers traveling on the ships that so unexpectedly docked on their coast they rushed to prepare a fitting reception, proud to be honored by their new monarchs’ first visit to Spanish terra firma.

  While Philippe was excited at the idea of parading through the streets on the beautiful Arabian sorrels we’d brought, dressing up so as to inspire the admiration of his new subjects, I wondered how to handle the delicate situation. I did not want to risk casting doubt on my father’s authority by having our triumphal entry be interpreted as an attempt to displace him. As per the agreement signed in Salamanca on November 24, 1505 (after my astute progenitor married Germaine de Foix, thereby destroying the alliance Philippe and my father-in-law had made with the French), my husband had no choice but to accept that he and I would reign together, but with my father as governor and rights to half the kingdom’s income. But this agreement, like so many others those two men signed, was not worth the paper it was written on. Neither was willing to cede. And they were constantly stalling for time in order to take stock of their forces and their plots. I was the wild card, decisive for both of their hands, and my plan was to side with my father to keep Philippe and especially his counselors from ousting me with their trickery, leaving the Flemish to usurp Spain’s power. I had to act carefully, showing restraint and intelligence, so as not to send mixed signals. So I decided not to exercise my royal authority until I had met with my father and we had determined how we would share our power. Our hosts, surprised that I did not accept the keys to the city nor confirm their privileges, thought they might have somehow offended me. I tried my best to calm their fears and took lodgings with Philippe in a Franciscan convent they offered us out of hospitality. At the bidding of his counselors–particularly Gómez de Fuensalida–Philippe sent word of our arrival to the leading nobles in the kingdom. Over the next days, they began to arrive with their considerable retinues, and I saw, to my dismay, how most of them opted to side with Philippe; he, meanwhile, didn’t miss a chance to throw in my face what he saw as the stupidity of my decision to wait for my father rather than taking what was rightfully ours, once and for all. Ferdinand would simply have to accept his disadvantage and pull out of Castile, he said. If I’d been planning to rule with my father, I could forget about it. The nobility was sick and tired of his iron will, and what was more, of the taxes he made them pay.

  As in Flanders–although this time without locking my doors–Philippe subjected me to a campaign of isolation in my own country. He alone received the nobles as they arrived. The confessor at the convent, a good man with a gravelly voice, told me in the darkness of the chapel that there were rumors that my consort had taken me prisoner. I neither confirmed nor denied this, hoping that the situation would be resolved sooner rather than later.

  I suppose it was in order to silence rumors, that Philippe allowed me to receive the Marquis of Villena when he arrived to pay his respects. The great doors of the reception chamber were opened so that other nobles milling around could also catch a glimpse of me. My compatriots’ glances were sharp as arrows, attempting to penetrate my brain and ascertain for themselves whether I was in my right mind. The Marquis of Villena brought very affectionate letters for Philippe, from my father. The more challenging my husband’s stance became, the more humble and kind my father’s response. I wondered what he was up to.

  A few weeks after we arrived, the arrogance and impenetrability of Philippe’s Flemish court had become a brick wall against which Spanish ambitions were shattered, as nobles saw their hopes of receiving privileges, incomes, and appointments dashed. Tensions were mounting in the convent, and wide-ranging dissatisfaction was so great that even I heard the complaints aired in the chambers about the long waits and humiliations that Philippe and his men forced proud, impatient Spaniards to endure as they attempted to exchange their loyalty for privileges.

  One fine day, Philippe burst into the modest room where I was reading and attempting to escape the heat to inform me that he’d had news that my father, the Duke of Alba, and other supporters were advancing with the alleged intention of halting our progress inland. We’d be leaving La Coruña as soon as possible.

  Watching Philippe hatch plans and behave like a consecrated king–all the while hardly able to conceal his fear that I might wield my power against him–filled me with a strange mixture of outrage and pity. I was his captive, but being my jailer did not free him from the judgment in my eyes, nor the hidden shame he must feel at treating me this way. After all, despite my jealousy, I was the mother of his children and the woman whose love I knew had given him more pleasure and passion than any other. Whenever we made up, he himself acknowledged his remorse. He clung to me desperately, alternating love with the resentment he felt for knowing himself under my spell. He called me a witch, a bitch, and a whore, but we were two halves of the same whole and we fit together as perfectly as water fits inside the jug that holds it. In his heart of hearts he admired my stubborn defiance. The fact that I rebelled, my love of what was mine, reminded him of his grandfather Charles the Bold, the person he most worshipped and respected in all his family. As for me, I knew my majesty was indissoluble. It was rooted in a notion of personal freedom and independence that his incarcerations could never take away. When I compared my strength to his weaknesses I felt a sense of perverse delight. Along these twisted emotions our confrontations fed the very passion that destroyed us even as it bound us together in a malignant embrace from which neither one of us could escape.

  We departed La Coruña and traveled changing direction time and again, despite the enormous army accompanying us–two thousand German pikemen and nearly one thousand knights from the nobles’ own retinues–because my father had spread rumors of ambush and attacks along almost every road. Finally, P
hilippe received word that Ferdinand awaited him in a small, old chapel in the outskirts of Villafáfila. I was not informed of this meeting. Philippe wanted to keep me from joining up with my progenitor at any cost.

  My hosts, the Marquis of Villena and the Count of Benavente, tried to divert me so that I would remain unaware of the preparations being carried out for my husband’s meeting with my father. Alas, I would have had to be dead and buried not to notice Philippe’s tumultuous exit, given that he headed a party of one thousand armed horsemen. Concealing my anxiety at what I took to be perhaps the first step in a war between my father and his son-in-law, I personally went to look for the marquis and demanded an explanation. He assured me that there was no need for me to torment myself with speculations. It was just a march, a drill intended to combat the complacency and lack of discipline rife in the German ranks. I pretended to accept his word, but I became convinced, after talking to him, that he was lying. My father was probably close by, and he and the others were simply following Philippe’s instructions to deceive me and keep me from seeing him.

  Although I was convulsed with rage and gripped by anguish, I had to remain clearheaded, for if I did not act with the appropriate urgency I would miss my chance to meet with Ferdinand. That he had not requested a meeting with me himself seemed suspect and ominous to me, but I preferred to blame it on Philippe and his ruses.

  I used a pair of emerald earrings to bribe one of the cooks in the small palace. Through him I found out what everyone in the palace knew already. Ferdinand and Philippe were meeting in Villafáfila that day to sign a treaty that would give Philippe regency of Castile and stipulate that my father would retire to Aragon. As I later found out, unlike Philippe who arrived with his multitudinous and well-armed escorts, Ferdinand showed up with only two hundred knights, all smiles and affability. The treaty they signed curtailed my power and prevented me from governing, alluding to impaired mental faculties, which could endanger the sacred interests of the kingdom. Besides, my father also agreed to leave Castile, which he did after conversing alone with his son-in-law for two hours, without so much as requesting to see me. Just as Catalina had feared, the two men were making alliances, casting me aside. But things were not to remain so. Before the day’s end my father would turn against Philippe, and I got ready to follow suit. As soon as I discovered that a meeting between them was taking place, I began scheming and finally managed to be allowed to go for a ride with the Count of Benavente and the Marquis of Villena.