For Gabriel, it was as though a sign had been given; he fell upon the Jew with his huge fists and knocked him to the ground.
I shrieked at him, as if he could somehow hear me over the roars and cheers and curses in the street below. “Stop it! Gabriel, stop it! Leave the old man alone!”
At the same time, the childish part of me wanted to stifle my words and simply turn away. I was humiliated by the Jew’s presence; why had he come here to my street, reminding me of my unwanted heritage? Why couldn’t he have wandered somewhere else?
But I couldn’t bear the sight of his suffering, or the boys’ cruelty. I turned and ran into my mother’s bedchamber. She and Máriam were sitting on her bed, whispering with their heads together. Between them lay a thick bundle of uncarded wool, bound tightly in dingy cotton, which they were in the process of unwinding. Máriam—tall and lithe, with a dancer’s grace—was a Nubian, a slave whose intelligence and kind heart had prompted my father (at my mother’s insistence) to free her. Such was Máriam’s loyalty that she didn’t return to her homeland, which lay south of Egypt, but instead agreed to attend my mother for servants’ wages.
I was shocked when Máriam looked up at me—not by her amazing flawless skin, the shade of charred umber with blue undertones, a brown that verged on black and offered little contrast to the black silk scarf wrapped about her head like a turban, one end pulled through and hanging down between her shoulder blades; or by her remarkable features, which looked as though a long-dead Roman sculptor had taken a bust of an alabaster goddess and, with skilled fingers, had pressed the bridge of her nose until it was slightly broader and flatter, then smoothed and rounded the tip and made the lips voluptuously fuller. I was shocked because for once, Máriam didn’t smile at the sight of me. If anything, she looked startled and frightened and guilty, just like my mother, who immediately stopped her furious effort to unwrap the bundle.
“Marisol!” Máriam snapped; it was not a greeting to me but a warning to my mother.
“A Jew,” I wheezed. “An old man—he can’t walk, they took his walking stick, and now they’re beating him!”
My mother glanced in horror at Máriam, who widened her eyes in dismay and pressed long, thin fingers to her rose-brown lips before giving a sharp, anguished nod. Years would pass before I understood what Máriam meant by the gesture.
“Bastards,” my mother hissed; it was the first and only time I heard her use such language. She jumped to her feet and dashed through the open door onto the balcony, leaving the bundle in Máriam’s care. I followed her as she gripped the railing and peered down and to her left, at the cheering boys gathered at the end of the cul-de-sac.
By then Gabriel had seized the old man’s beard and collar and was lifting his frail, bony body off its feet. My mother and I watched as Miguel untied the scarf knotted at the back of the man’s head, then stripped it away to reveal his features.
Once again, the crowd stilled; shouts became murmurs. The elderly Jew’s chin and mouth were completely hidden by his thick yellow-white beard, but his nose …
The bridge of his nose rose from between his eyes and quickly grew very prominent. At its highest point—midway to his beard-covered lips—it abruptly dipped where the knife blade had exited, leaving behind a flat, pinkish white cord of rubbery flesh flanked by elongated, teardrop-shaped reddish holes where his nostrils had been.
My mother let go a faint moan and clutched the railing.
Gabriel turned his face away but didn’t loosen his grip on the Jew’s collar. For a moment, Miguel too was frozen but recovered himself and lifted the walking stick to deliver another wallop to the old man’s backside.
The crowd buzzed with speculation.
“A thief! He must have been a thief!”
“He was punished for something.…”
“Maybe we should cut something else of his off for coming into our barrio!”
“Let him go!” my mother called, but she was too agitated to draw sufficient breath to be heard. “Let him go…!”
I put my arms around her and helped her back into her bedroom. By then, the mysterious bundle had vanished from the bed and Máriam was on her feet, her chin lifted, her stance regal. I delivered my weeping mother into her thin, muscular arms, as Máriam said sternly, “Marisol! Go to your father at once and tell him an old man is being murdered in the street.”
Her voice was as soft as ever, barely louder than a whisper, yet I heard the ferocity all the same. And while I was puzzled by Máriam’s behavior—she could have saved time by running to tell my father herself, instead of waiting in my mother’s bedroom—I obeyed her and dashed out her chamber door onto the mudéjar-style loggia, the covered, open hallway that connected all rooms on the middle floor. I ran down the half-open hallway, turning a corner where the north wing met the central, and again when the central wing met the southern, where my father’s chambers sat.
The door to my father’s study was open. He had invited no guests this Sunday but sat alone, surrounded by books and maps of the city as he squinted down at a well-worn tome of municipal code spread open upon his reading desk. Creases had formed above his golden brown brows, and his pale blue eyes held a distant, pensive look, which vanished the instant I ran up to him, gasping and panicked. Still sitting, he turned himself and his full attention toward me and caught my forearms.
“Marisol, calm down and tell me,” he said. His grip was soothingly firm, his tone calm.
“It’s a Jew, an old man,” I blurted. “Gabriel and the others are beating him out in the street!” I drew a breath, unable to hold back the most sordid detail. “He has no nose!”
At the word Jew my father tensed. “Your mother—where is she?” His fingers dug deeper into my flesh.
“In her chamber, with Máriam,” I said. I didn’t understand why he was frightened for her.
My father dropped his hold on me and rose at once; the fear in his eyes had transformed into a deep, smoldering fury. “Go back to your mother and stay with her,” he said evenly. “I’ll see to this.”
But by then I was already halfway out the door, figuring that if I didn’t remain long enough to hear his command clearly, I couldn’t be held responsible for disobeying it. I ran back the way I had come and took the staircase down to the ground level. There I flew to the front entrance, past the unlocked gate, and out into the street.
The drama in the cul-de-sac had taken a fresh turn. The old man, his maimed face and head uncovered, clung with trembling arms to the trunk of the nearest olive tree. Miguel had gone in search of a knife sturdy enough to slice off a body part; while awaiting the spectacle, the kickball players and their fans had gathered in a semicircle, hurling pebbles at the Jew.
A giant compared to his victim, Gabriel swung the walking stick, clubbing the old man’s back and shoulders pitilessly. The man emitted only faint groans; with each fresh strike, his grip loosened and he slipped farther toward the ground.
I ran down the street toward them. Servants had wandered out of the surrounding houses to watch, most of them with honest dismay or faint disapproval, their hands to their mouths, but none of them demanded an end to the violence.
I was halfway down the street when I spied my strawberry-blond friend, Antonio, pushing his way through the crowd. It wasn’t until he ran directly up to Gabriel—who was preparing to take another swing with the walking stick—that I noticed Antonio’s right hand was clenched in a fist. My jaw dropped: Antonio was nimble and athletic for a fourteen-year-old, but he was no match for seventeen-year-old Gabriel’s height and was less than half Gabriel’s breadth. I watched in horror as Antonio’s fist went flying toward Gabriel.…
Three
In the Chapel of the Fifth Anguish, I opened my eyes, startled at the touch of Gabriel’s hand upon my elbow; the priest had finished his sermon and had just asked Gabriel and me to face each other. As I turned, I glanced through my filmy veil at the bits of brightness against the backdrop of overwhelming gloom—at the carve
d white tears of the Madonna, at her gleaming sunburst halo, at the pale, skeletal leer of the priest. Behind us, my father stepped forward and handed something small and shining to my desperate-eyed groom, who took it and turned back to me as if I were his executioner.
I looked reluctantly at Gabriel. Six years had passed since the elderly Jew had wandered into our neighborhood; I was seventeen now, old for a new bride, and Gabriel was twenty-three. He’d returned from university to practice civil law in Seville, reluctantly: He had badly wanted to join his older brother Alonso as a monk at San Pablo Cloister, but don Jerónimo had refused, saying that his offering of one son to the church was sufficient; it was Gabriel’s duty to supply him with grandchildren. Somehow Jerónimo had secured his youngest the post of civil prosecutor, a job many said was ill matched to Gabriel’s natural timidity and unimpressive intellect. Gabriel had lived with his father until the old man died, and afterward, continued to live alone in his father’s house.
No longer a lad, Gabriel was still taller, broader, and more pious than his peers. Despite his sedentary days indoors either at court or reading law books, he was still powerfully built and strong. He saw the sun twice a day now, when he walked from his house to the government building near the vacant Royal Palace and back; it had bleached his hair stark white and left his fair nose and cheeks tinged with pink. Candlelight glittered off tiny beads of sweat on his upper lip as he reached for my hand.
If I hadn’t been trapped within my self-made prison of grief and guilt, I might have pulled away from him and run down the altar steps to disappear into the darkness. But resentment—cold and burning as ice against bare flesh—made me hold my ground and glare into my bridegroom’s fear-filled, bovine eyes. I loved my father deeply, yet I was furious because he was sending me away when I needed him most, to live with a man I despised. For that crime, I was willing to be miserable for a lifetime as a reproach to him—and to myself. Fixing that thought in my mind, I listened patiently as Gabriel haltingly repeated the vows fed him by the priest, and when Gabriel reached for me, I lifted my hand to meet his halfway. I pressed my fingertips against his damp left palm and raised my right ring finger, enabling him to slip the thin golden band onto it.
Then it was time for me to make my promise. There would be no ring for Gabriel, just as there would be no fragrant flowers, no happy mother of the bride, and no new wedding dress, only mourning.
“I, Marisol, promise to take you, Gabriel, for my lawful wedded husband.…”
My tone was flat; I rattled off the words as quickly as I could. They sickened me, for though I’d often longed to utter them, I was addressing them to the wrong man.
* * *
I returned to the tableau frozen in my memory—of the terrified old Jew and his mutilated face, sinking as he clung to the olive tree; of Gabriel, swinging the thick walking stick to the cheering of his teammates; of Antonio, his red-gold hair catching the sunlight as he ran, his right fist raised, up to Gabriel. I called out Antonio’s name, fearing he meant to strike the bigger boy, a losing proposition—but at the last instant, as Gabriel turned his quizzical face toward Antonio, the latter’s fist opened abruptly to fling sand up into Gabriel’s face at the same time that he shouted at the bully and the crowd:
“Cowards! Cowards, all of you, to attack someone weaker than yourselves!”
Gabriel roared and dropped the walking stick; his hands went to his eyes. He lumbered about blindly long enough for Antonio to recover the stick and wallop him behind the knees.
Gabriel fell face forward onto the soft dirt in front of the olive tree, only an arm’s length from his shivering victim, who now sat crouched, knees to chest, as he pressed against the knotted trunk.
A palpable beat of silence passed, during which time Antonio draped the cloak over the gasping old man’s shoulders and pressed the scarf into his hand; Gabriel’s blows had done the poor Jew such harm that he could not stand. By then I was wriggling my way through the crowd; every male was gaping at Antonio, utterly spellbound. Desperate to reach my friend before the tide turned against him, I pushed harder as I forced my way past distracted, motionless boys.
The crowd suddenly caught its collective breath, and one youth giggled, then another; abruptly, the cul-de-sac filled with the Eagles’ and Lions’ derisive laughter. Beet faced, Gabriel rose to his hands and knees, clearly smarting from the blow, his teeth gritted with hatred and pain. As he rose groaning to his feet, he shot an accusatory glance at his teammates.
But the other boys were fickle; the Jew would provide sufficient entertainment once Miguel returned with the knife. Until then, they found sport in the slightly more even contest between Antonio and Gabriel.
“Fight!” one of them shouted, and the rest of them gleefully took up the chant:
“Fight fight FIGHT!”
Antonio moved away from the Jew and the olive tree, and, gripping the heavy walking stick at the base with one hand, held it like a swordsman ready to parry. Gabriel squared off against him—a hulking Goliath against a lithe, armed David—and charged, bellowing. By then I had made my way past all but the outer ring of sweating boys and stopped to stare and pray silently for Antonio’s sake.
Antonio’s free hand moved so quickly to his tunic pocket that Gabriel, focusing on his opponent’s weapon, did not notice—not until Antonio flung more sand into his eyes and thwacked the side of his head, just above the ear, with the tip of the stick.
The audience roared—some with approval, others with encouragement for Gabriel, who cursed the blue of the Madonna’s veil and the Holy Crimson Blood as he rubbed his eyes. The injured Jew had by then retied the scarf to cover his missing nose and his mouth; I fancied that he was smiling beneath it, perhaps because I smiled involuntarily myself.
My grin immediately faded as Gabriel, still half-blinded, grabbed two large handfuls of dirt and pelted Antonio in the face with them. Antonio ducked his head, though not in time. He reached one-handed for his stinging eyes, keeping a firm grip on the walking stick, and swiped randomly at the air.
It wasn’t enough. Gabriel recovered faster and caught hold of the stick; all too easily, he wrested it from the smaller boy’s grip—then threw it aside and charged Antonio, knocking him to the ground.
Gabriel’s bulk collided with Antonio’s shorter, slender frame with an ominous thud, and Antonio released a sharp, wordless vocalization as his back struck the ground, forcing the air from his lungs. By then, I had screamed and was already pushing my way between the two avid spectators that separated me from the fighters. In less time than it takes to draw in a breath, Gabriel was on his knees, his left arm wrapped tightly around the prone Antonio’s neck, his right terminating in a fist that struck the younger boy’s head again, again, again. Antonio tried to lift his head, and I caught sight of his face: His features were even and pretty, childlike in proportion, with his straight nose still too short, his eyes still too big for his head. He would grow up to be a handsome man—at least, if the damage Gabriel wrought that day was not too great. At the moment, one of Antonio’s eyes was swelling shut and blood trickled from one of his perfect nostrils.
I bolted from the crowd, aware not of Gabriel’s massive fists but only of Antonio and his wounds. I ran directly up to his tormentor, who, kneeling, was now at my eye level, lost in an animal fury, unaware of his surroundings. Forgetting all but my rage at his cruelty, I shoved my face in his and screamed:
“Gabriel! Let him go!”
My cry broke the spell. Gabriel looked up at me, startled, as if I were an avenging angel who had spontaneously materialized before him; I suppose it was the first time I’d ever called him by name. My gaze still locked with his, I placed my head between his fist and Antonio’s crown and watched in amazement as all anger drained from his homely features and was replaced by an odd, reverent tenderness. Yet beneath the tenderness lurked a guilty sensuality, the look of a penitent who finds himself lustfully beguiled by the Madonna’s beauty. His thick arm slowly uncoiled itself
from Antonio’s neck and dropped.
Antonio immediately rolled into a sitting position. “Marisol!” he cried. His bottom lip was cut and bloodied, causing him to lisp, and his red-blond bangs were now dark copper and stuck to his sweat-slicked forehead. His tone held no welcome or gratitude, only disapproval, as if to say, You might have gotten yourself killed! But he took the arm I proffered him, and I helped him stand just as the mob went silent.
“Back to your houses!” a man cried sharply. I glanced up to see the kickball players quietly dispersing. The cul-de-sac began to empty quickly, as a commanding voice emanated from the gate of the Hojeda house.
“Gabriel, come inside at once!” Don Jerónimo’s voice was thin and reedy yet conveyed such steely authority that every child in the street fell quiet, while Gabriel hung his head. I squinted at don Jerónimo’s figure, stark black, stooped and featureless against the blinding coral of the setting sun. The slightest exertion left the elderly Jerónimo winded, but he was not gasping and breathless, as he would have been had he been notified of the violence and rushed to quell it. Clearly, he had been watching the entire time.
“Come away, Gabriel,” he repeated, in a voice that pierced the sudden quiet. “Come away from that filthy little marrana!”
Marrana, he called me. A female pig, a sow. Although the term had been directed at my mother, I had never been called that name before—the ugliest name you could call a conversa in those days—and it cut to the bone.
I stood, stunned and smarting, as Gabriel headed into the dying sun to join his father; as they disappeared behind the gate, Gabriel let go a sharp yelp.
The instant don Jerónimo was gone, the children remaining in the square slowed and turned toward me and began to chant in a scathing singsong:
The Inquisitor's Wife Page 4
