The Lady in Blue

by Javier Sierra

  Carlos stifled a look of admiration. That was the name that Father Tejada had just given them.

  “The synchronicities are following us, my friend. We are getting close. Very close. Care to join me tomorrow when I pay a visit to the director?”

  The journalist nodded. His uneasiness had now turned into a troubling preoccupation.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  VENICE BEACH

  At 5:25 PM Pacific Standard Time, a U.S. postal truck pulled up in front of Jennifer Narody’s small white house, situated in a small alley running parallel to Venice’s celebrated Ocean Front Walk. The mailman made his way to her front door carrying a heavy envelope bearing the postmark of the Eternal City.

  “Rome!” she murmured as she examined it. “Today of all days.”

  She hurried to open it.

  There was something unusual about the package: there was no indication of the sender. Jennifer could only make out the city of origin. And yet what was in the package was stranger still: a handful of parchment pages, stitched together along the border, emerged from it without even so much as a note accompanying them.

  Jennifer had no idea who had sent her the package. Moreover, the text on the pages was in Spanish, in a devilishly difficult handwriting that made it hard to decipher a single word. “Perhaps Doctor Meyers can lend a hand with this tomorrow,” she said to herself, remembering the calls her therapist had made to Spain.

  Deciding to try to forget about the contents of the envelope, she placed it in a drawer for safekeeping and spent the rest of the afternoon watching television. Outside the sky grew dark and soon unleashed a torrent along the coast.

  “Damn this weather,” she groaned.

  Jennifer remained sleeping until 7:54 the next morning. Her dreams, of course, continued as usual.

  FORTY-NINE

  ISLETA

  END OF SUMMER, 1629

  Look! Take a good look, Father!”

  Friar Diego López brushed the sand off Friar Salas with a heavy cloth. Their hours marching through the desert had had their effect on him. Only the rosary that Masipa and Ankti presented to him before he left gave him the spirit necessary to keep from dying.

  “Do you see it?” the friar asked again.

  “But if that is . . .”

  “Yes, Father, it is. Isleta! We made it!”

  The old man’s face became animated.

  “May God be praised!” he cried out.

  Almost lost in the horizon and still farther away than the tall junipers that marked the course of the Rio Grande, the towers of the Mission of San Antonio de Padua rose proudly in the distance.

  Friar Juan smiled for an instant. Squinting, he noticed something unusual surrounding the mission.

  “Do you see it, too, Brother Diego?” His voice was trembling.

  “See? What is there to see, Father?”

  “The shadows around the church. They look a bit like the caravan of autumn, the one that journeys from the City of Mexico.”

  Diego concentrated, trying to make out the shapes resting near the bottom of the towers.

  “That caravan comes through here only twice a year. It takes the route between Santa Fe and the City of Mexico with an armed escort, and it is the great event of the season. But it is still very early for it to be here.”

  Friar Diego was still trying to make out the caravan. “Do you remember Friar Esteban telling us that the Father Custodian, Friar Alonso de Benavides, would leave his position in Sante Fe in September? Perhaps that is his caravan, returning to Mexico.”

  Salas ended up agreeing with his young disciple’s argument. No other explanation made sense: the mission was surrounded by the military convoy of the new viceroy, the Marquis of Cerralbo, and among those traveling in the caravan should be counted Friar Alonso de Benavides. Who else could it be?

  Their conjectures came to an end once they were closer to Isleta. Approached from the east, the mission resembled a small Andalusian town holding its annual fair. There were as many as eighty large wagons, some with four wheels and some with two, scattered around the tent-bearing stakes. Protected by patrols of soldiers, the land beyond the walls of the mission overflowed with Indians, mestizos, and Spaniards.

  If only Isleta were always like this!

  Wading through the middle of the crowd, the two friars found it easy to enter Isleta without calling undue attention to themselves. They entered the settlement and headed toward the front of the church. There, as they rested at the foot of the adobe towers, they felt the satisfaction of having fulfilled their duty.

  “We should look for Esteban de Perea.”

  “Certainly, Brother Diego, certainly.” The old man nodded.

  “Have you come to a decision about the Lady in Blue yet, Father? As you well know, Esteban de Perea is very demanding, and he will ask me to confirm your account word for word.”

  “You needn’t worry about that, Diego. I intend to make such a powerful impression, they will have no energy to interrogate you.”

  Friar Diego laughed.

  The two men squeezed through the passage leading toward the large white tent raised at the foot of the eastern wall of the church. A soldier in drab cloth pants, a sheepskin jacket, and a cuirass stood guard at the doorway, his lance at the ready.

  “What do you want?”

  Gripping the lance in his left hand, the soldier’s arm prevented them from going any further.

  “Is this where Friar Esteban de Perea keeps store?” Salas inquired.

  “This is where Friar Alonso de Benavides, the territorial custodian, works,” he said curtly. “Friar Perea can be found inside.”

  The friars shared a complicit smile.

  “We are Juan de Salas and Diego López,” the former said by way of introduction. “For more than a month we have been in the Jumano territories, and we bring him news.”

  The soldier remained at attention. Without the slightest change in his martial bearing, he made a half turn and walked into the tent. Several seconds went by. The silence that reigned under the canvas was broken by the unmistakable voice of the Inquisitor.

  “Brothers!” He thundered from somewhere inside. “Come in. Please come in!”

  The two travelers let themselves be guided by Esteban de Perea’s shouts. Four men were sitting around a long table at the back of the tent: Perea, two of the Franciscans who had accompanied him to the mission, and a fourth, a priest whom they could not at first identify. He was a severe-looking man with thick white brows, a wrinkled forehead, and a large flat nose, with every hair perfectly in place. He was already past fifty, but the years, far from weighing him down, had conferred a solemn, majestic bearing upon him. He was none other than the Portuguese friar Alonso de Benavides, in charge of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in New Mexico, the Church’s highest authority in the desert.

  Benavides fixed his attention on the two men while leaving it to Esteban de Perea to handle matters. “Has everything gone well?”

  Friar Esteban seemed excited.

  “Divine Providence has watched over us as always,” Friar Juan answered.

  “And the Lady, what have you learned about her?”

  Benavides raised his eyes toward the two men at mention of the Lady in Blue.

  “She came very close to us, Friar. One Indian even saw her near the village the day before we entered Cueloce.”

  “Indeed?”

  Friar Juan became very serious.

  “Those are not just words, Father,” he said. “We have brought with us concrete proof of what we are saying. A gift from heaven.”

  Father Salas searched in his sack as Friars Esteban and Alonso de Benavides exchanged perplexed looks. Father Salas reminded Benavides of another humble man, although one without religious instruction, who had presented a gift from the Virgin to a handful of disbelieving clerics so that he might convince them of her apparition. This man existed one hundred years before, toward the end of Christmas 1531, in the hills of Tepeyac, near Mexico City
. His name was Juan Diego and his Virgin was known as Guadalupe. Yet Pope Urban VIII had given specific orders that her religious cult be suspended. So why then should Benavides accept the gift that Friar Juan de Salas brought for them from the very same Virgin?

  The old Franciscan held up his offering at last.

  “This rosary,” he said solemnly as he held the perfectly preserved necklace out to them, “was the gift of the Lady in Blue to two Indians in Cueloce.”

  A spark of avarice flickered in Friar Esteban’s eyes. He took the black beads in his hands, and kissed the cross. He then handed the rosary to Alonso de Benavides so that he could examine it. The latter gave it a brief look and placed it in his robes for safekeeping.

  “Tell me,” Friar Benavides said at last in his thick Portuguese accent, “how did this . . . gift . . . come into your hands?”

  “The Lady in Blue entrusted it to a pair of Jumanos. It is clear that Our Lady wanted to give us a proof of her apparitions.”

  “Leave the theology to me,” the Custodian snapped. “Now tell me: why did this Lady not present it directly to you, Friar?”

  “Your Eminence,” the young Diego López broke in, “you well know that God keeps his reasons to himself alone. Nevertheless, you will permit me to say a few words? The Virgin only appears to those with innocent hearts, those who have most need of her. Or perhaps is it not to children and shepherds that she has always revealed herself?”

  “Do you believe that as well?” the Custodian drily asked the elderly Father Salas.

  “I do, Your Eminence.”

  “You therefore believe that the Lady is a manifestation of Our Holy Mother?”

  “She is, Father, an original manifestation of the Virgin. We are certain of it.”

  The Portuguese friar turned bright red. His hand gently grasped the pocket where he had placed the rosary, while he let his fingers caress the individual beads. And then, suddenly, his other hand pounded on the long table. Everyone was staring at him.

  “That is not possible!” he exploded.

  “Friar Alonso, please . . .” Esteban de Perea did his best to calm him, bringing him cool water in a clay cup. “We already discussed this subject once before.”

  “It simply is not possible!” he reiterated. “We have in our possession another report that contradicts your conclusion. That invalidates your hypothesis! That sheds some light on this deception!”

  Benavides would not be placated.

  “Have you not read Friar Francisco de Porras’s declaration? It is all there!”

  “Friar Francisco de Porras?”

  Esteban de Perea stood up.

  “There is no way for them to be aware of such a document, Friar Benavides. It only arrived here after their departure for Gran Quivira.”

  “What document are you talking about?” Juan de Salas was livid.

  The Inquisitor walked over to Friar Salas, his face full of compassion. He felt such an overwhelming respect for the old man, who had spent his life preaching the Word in a part of the world that was so barren and harsh, that he almost regretted having to contradict him.

  “You see, Father, after you had set out with the Jumanos,” Friar Esteban said in a conciliatory fashion, “Friar Benavides sent a second expedition of friars to the northern part of the territories.”

  “But this Porras?” Father Salas insisted. He had heard about him.

  “Friar Francisco de Porras was in fact the leader of the group. We are talking about a small expedition of four friars, with two armed men for protection. They arrived in Awatovi, the largest Moqui settlement, on the feast of Saint Bernard, and founded a mission there bearing his name. That was where they gathered news of the various incidents, which we want to pass on to you, Father Salas.”

  “Incidents among the Moquis?”

  “You have no doubt heard of them under a different name. The Indians also call themselves Hopis or Hopitus, which means the Peaceful Ones. They live quite a distance from here.”

  Friar Alonso stared at everyone, his face still flush with anger. It was unacceptable to him that the Most Holy Virgin would waste time instructing the unbelievers. And yet there must doubtless be a more rational solution to this quandary. And Benavides, his Spanish laden with its curious Portuguese accent, was ready to supply it.

  “The expedition to the Moqui lands returned yesterday,” he announced. “They have given us their report of their first contacts with the inhabitants of Awatovi.”

  “And what did they say?”

  “Father Porras’s expedition reached its destination on the twentieth of August. There they encountered a welcoming population, but one reticent about our faith. Their tribal leaders moved quickly to put the new arrivals to the test, as a means of discrediting them.”

  “Put them to the test? How?”

  “The witch doctors are very powerful in those parts and keep the population in fear with their tales of kachinas and the spirits of their ancestors. Our friars attempted to combat this by preaching about the All Powerful Creator to the Indians, only to have the witch doctors, who were acting most unjustly, present them with a blind child, whom they asked the friars to cure in the name of our God.”

  “The Moquis have not seen the Lady in Blue?”

  “Be patient, Friar,” Esteban de Perea begged him. “What happened there was very different.”

  “How is that?”

  “Do you remember when, a little more than a month ago, we interrogated Sakmo, the Jumano?”

  “As if it were yesterday, Friar Esteban.”

  “And do you remember when Friar García de San Francisco, our brother from Zamora, showed the Indian the portrait of Mother María Luisa de Carrión?”

  “Of course I remember! The warrior said the Lady in Blue that he had seen bore a certain resemblance to her, but that the Woman of the Desert was younger.”

  “Very well, Friar, the governor has good reason to believe that this nun, Mother María Luisa, is currently intervening in our lands in a miraculous manner.”

  “And why would she do that?” he asked incredulously, almost as if he were irritated. He directed his question to the vigilant Benavides.

  “Do not overreact, I beg you,” Perea said. “The friars who visited the Moquis were devotees of Madre María Luisa. And when the Indian chiefs brought the young child to them, they placed a small, inscribed wooden cross, blessed by this nun in Spain, over his eyes. It was through her grace, and after many prayers with the crucifix resting on the child, that he was cured.”

  Benavides, who had calmed down somewhat, added, “Do you understand now, Fathers? The child was cured through the agency of Mother Carrión’s cross. She is the one who is intervening here!”

  “And where does Your Eminence see the hand of the Lady in Blue in this episode?” Brother Diego protested energetically. “That a child is cured by a blessed cross does not prove . . .”

  “The connection is quite clear, Brother,” Benavides interjected. “If an object blessed by Madre Luisa cures someone, then why not admit that she has the power to bilocate as well, to send a second body to these lands, thereby discreetly helping us in our task? Is she not a Franciscan like ourselves? Would she not quietly watch out for our success, if it were in her hands to do so?”

  “But . . .”

  “Of course, this prodigy will be studied by my successor, Friar Perea,” he announced. “He is the one who will determine whether or not a relationship exists between the two occurrences. Nevertheless, before I return to Spain, there is something I want to agree upon with all of you.”

  Juan de Salas craned his neck and Brother Diego took two steps closer to the long table in order to get a good look at what Benavides wished to show them. He placed Ankti’s rosary and Madre Carrión’s cross directly in front of the two friars. He fumbled among the beads until he found the silver cross that was the centerpiece of the rosary. He then placed it next to the cross that the friars had brought back from the territory of the Moquis.
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  “Do you see? Exactly alike!”

  Friar Salas took both crosses in his hands, lifting them close to his face. They were in fact the same size, with the same borders in relief. He scrutinized them slowly, and hefted them in his deeply wrinkled fingers to calculate their respective weights.

  “With all due respect, Friar Benavides,” he said after a long silence. “All crosses look alike.”

  Brother Diego vigorously seconded him.

  “It proves nothing.”

  FIFTY

  MADRID

  Paseo de Recoletos 20 was bustling with activity at nine in the morning. Seen from the sidewalk in front of the Colón Apartments, that fabulous neoclassical edifice gave the impression of being a gigantic anthill: ordered and precise. Overflowing with life.

  José Luis Martín and Carlos Albert strode energetically toward the National Library’s sentry box. Their names were listed among the visitors with appointments, so it turned out not to be difficult for them to gain access to the restricted area of the library and be accompanied to the director’s office. The anthill was very quickly transformed into a sumptuous palace, its marble corridors adorned with valuable works of art that peered at the visitors from every imaginable angle. At the center of this labyrinth was Enrique Valiente, who received them in his spacious wood-lined office while seated behind a mahogany desk that was over two hundred years old.

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said as he offered his hand to his visitors. “Have you learned anything about the Benavides manuscript?”

  José Luis shook his head.

  “As of yet, no,” he confessed. “But don’t worry, we’ll recover it.”

  Valiente was not so sure, and his face showed it. He invited his guests to sit down.

  Enrique Valiente had a rather quixotic air about him. Thin, with a well-trimmed beard and a smooth brow, he had a manner both alert and honest. If not for his impeccable wool suit and blue tie, his two visitors would have thought they were meeting Don Alonso Quijano in his library overflowing with books on chivalry. As the courteous introductions were coming to a close, Enrique started nervously fishing through the sea of notes, Post-its, oversized cards, official bulletins, and press digests that swamped his desk.