I have lost count of the number of autos since that first one in which my mother and father burned. It is now April. Holy Week, and I have heard that more than two hundred Conversos have been put to the stake. The king and queen no longer attend every single one as they did in the beginning. Even death has become slightly boring to them. Of course, when someone very important is to be “relaxed,” they attend. Yes, that is what the sentence of burning at the stake is officially called, “relaxed,” because no member of the church must be directly linked to the shedding of blood. So the heretic is “relaxed,” or handed over by the tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition to the police, who carry out the sentence. And at each auto-da-fé the priest reads from the text of the Gospel of St. John: “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch and is withered: and men gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.”
It all works out very properly. It is not only a religion of great mystery and sacred relics but one of great convenience and practicality. Lying is essential now. Lying is the faith. Lying helped murder my parents. I shall never forget that first auto-da-fé, the one on the sixth day of February.
All week I had watched from the shadows as the chief of police directed the workers in raising the wooden stakes by the quemadero, the place of burning. I saw Paco there with his father the day that they raised the statues of the four prophets at each corner of the quemadero. I heard someone say that indeed Paco’s father had contributed the money for the statues. I remembered thinking, Why would they want the prophets to decorate such a place? But then I thought, as I do a thousand times a day now, Nothing makes sense any longer.
On the morning of February sixth one would have thought it was a festival day. Food vendors were out, and jugglers and acrobats. And soon the procession began. A priest mounted a platform and, as he raised his arms, everyone fell to their knees and began reciting the Paternoster. I did as well, but the words became jumbled in my head. Hebrew, Latin, Spanish collided together on my tongue. How could I believe that there was a God to pray to? How could I believe that there was a thing called faith? How could anything have meaning if the word faith had become part of an act to kill? Auto-da-fé—act of faith. Act in which people are burned to death. When I looked up from the prayer, I saw two carts drawn by donkeys. In each cart there were three people. At first I was relieved. I did not see Mama or Papa. But then a coldness began to creep over me as I realized what I was actually seeing. It felt as if my blood was congealing in my veins. My heart did not race, no, quite the opposite. I think it perhaps slowed and might have even stopped for a second as I realized that indeed I was looking directly at my parents. They were passing not thirty feet from me, but they had been transformed into something almost unrecognizable. They looked if not dead, unreal, like figures of effigies. Their eyes were sunken and fixed in their sockets, registering nothing. And on their gaunt bodies hung these oddly comical clothes. They wore tall, pointed hats and the tunics called sanben-itos. Embroidered on the tunics by the good nuns of the convent where my sisters had often helped were figures of devils and hideous monsters leaping from the flames.
“That’s to remind them,” said a bent old lady by my elbow, pointing at the gruesome embroidery.
“To remind them of what?” I asked.
“To remind them, child, of where their poor souls will go if they do not confess and repent.”
Hope suddenly swelled inside me. “You mean they can confess and repent and be saved?”
“Well, of course, my dear. You watch.”
So I watched as my mother and father and the four other prisoners mounted the platform and were led to the stakes, where kindling had been piled. An immense white cross stood in the middle, and at this early hour of the morning the shadows cast by it were still long.
“When do they ask them to repent and confess?” I asked.
“Oh, soon, I should think.” The old lady turned to a companion. “When do you think, Maria?”
“Oh, look, there goes Friar Torquemado now. Up the steps. He will ask them. The queen’s confessor himself. My! My!” She sighed in wonder.
Now I prayed. “Please, God, if there is a god, make my parents confess, make them say anything. Please, God.” But when I looked up again, I saw that my mother’s head seemed to hang oddly to one side, like a wilted flower collapsed on its thin stalk. “What happened?” I asked.
“What do you mean, what happened?” the old lady asked.
“The lady at the stake, she looks as if she has fainted.”
“No, no, she’s confessed. They have shown her mercy.”
“But she looks”—I struggled to form the words—“she looks dead.” The two old women lifted their hands to their mouths and giggled as if they were shy, slightly flirtatious young señoritas.
“But she is dead,” the one named Maria finally said.
“She is dead? But I don’t understand. I thought you said they were showing her mercy.”
“They did. They garroted her, broke her neck. It is ever so much less painful than burning, child. It is very merciful.”
“But…”
At that moment I heard a crackling. “Oh, look, Maria, they’ve lit the fires. Oh, they must have poured grease on the kindling.”
“On the sinners, my dear, as well. Look at them.”
Within five seconds the flames leaped twenty feet in the air, and the roar of the inferno drowned out the cheers of the crowd. Ashes began to swirl up on drafts of air, and columns of smoke like knobby fingers poked at a blue and perfect sky.
That was the day my parents burned.
It is Holy Week in Seville. Always during this week there is a special feeling that seems to seep through the city, through the neighborhoods, and even into the narrowest alleys. There is anticipation. This sense of the possibility of transformation. There is a belief that through these days of the Passion of Christ, something deep within each person will change. And so indeed the city changes quietly, subtly, as if awaiting this new spirit. In the workshops of artisans, new images of the Virgin, the Virgin of Macarena, are carved. The artisans pay special attention to the Virgin’s tears. The tears are the hardest part of the sculpting and they are often painted in silver or gold leaf so they will sparkle. For the Virgin is only represented in her sorrow, crying at the death of her son. It is through her tears and his wounds that transformation is expected. I wait now near the cathedral, for it is Maundy Thursday. This is the most important day. It is the day of humbleness, when kings and rich men are supposed to wash the feet of beggars, and so the beggars line up in front of the massive doors of the cathedral. Their feet are horny with calluses and some festering with pus, toes gnarled from a lifetime without shoes. I line up too. It is risky. I could be discovered, but I wear an urchin’s cap down over my eyes. I see Don Olivares, Paco’s father, the same man who paid for the statues of the prophets of the quemadero where my parents burned; he is the head of one of the brotherhoods that carries the floats in the procession. He carries a cross. But he will set it down at the entrance of the cathedral and will take a bowl of water to wash the beggars’ feet. And with this act of humility he shall assure himself a place in heaven. But he does not listen to the gentle gasps of the beggars as their poor feet are washed. No. He listens for the voices of the common folk who say, “Ah, there goes Don Olivares; he is one of the richest men in the province and look at him now on his knees.” Yes, I want to look at him on his knees and say, “You will still burn in hell.”
I did not wait for the Brotherhood of the Silence and Great Mystery, which was the one of Don Olivares. For just before they came, another group arrived, a handful of women in black scarves carrying candles. They were in fact from the Convent of Santa Ines, and even the statue of the Virgin that they carried had been disfigured. But the wounds carved into her cheeks had been studded with paste jewels. Such is supposedly the transformation of those who suffer. What stupidity!
The sound of the saeta, the stra
nge musical prayer that seemed like a moan rather than a song, rose in the air as the women passed. I recognized the wife of the herbalist where I often went to fetch theriac for Papa, but then just behind her were some nuns. One nun was leading another by the hand, for she was blind. And then I felt a gasp tear from the deepest part of me. A shriek froze on my breath. And I thought I had seen the worst. I had not. For there a few feet from me, her face dripping flesh like melted candle wax, her eyes gone, the empty sockets crinkled as peach pits—there was Rosita, my sister.
My city used to smell of orange blossoms, but it now has a strange odor. It is the smell of burning flesh. For indeed they did not even stop the autos during Holy Week, and when I saw my sister I smelled scalded skin and seared eyeballs.
It is only a matter of time until I am discovered. But tonight I have decided I shall leave. The smell, the smell I must get away from, the foul stench. There is only one town that is safe anymore. That is Granada, still held by the Moors, and I think I remember that Papa said that our relatives from Toledo went to the Moorish city many years ago. I shall try to find them. Yes, it is risky and dangerous, but honestly I now fear nothing. Once you have smelled the flesh of your own parents burning, what else could there be to fear? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It is time for me to step out of the shadows.
Chapter 13
JERRY BLINKED AS she walked upstairs. Outside the world had turned a dazzling white. The fence posts of the cook yard wore snowy white caps. The branches of the apricot trees hung heavy with their mantles of snow. Constanza, bundled in a sheepskin coat, her head tied in a scarf under her Navajo black hat, was raking out an oven. Jerry peered at her through the window as she threw a pinch of bread into the hornos. A draft caught a puff of ash and sucked it out of the oven. A thin streak of smoke uncurled like a finger. Jerry felt a bone-pricking shiver rack through her. She did not smell bread. That was the day my parents…“No!” And she said the word loudly and very clearly as she stood in the kitchen.
“Whatcha saying no about?” Constanza was in the kitchen now, stomping her feet on the mat. She untied her scarf and took off her hat, the brim of which had collected its own little snowdrifts.
“No.” Jerry felt her eyes grow wide and round in astonishment. “I am not going to church anymore.”
“Fine, dear, suit yourself,” Constanza said softly.
Is this going to be like the letter? Jerry thought. Was she going to be left standing in the kitchen in a puddle of the melted snow her aunt brought in, saying, “That’s it”? She wasn’t saying simply no to church. “Aunt Constanza,” Jerry said, “listen to me.”
Constanza turned slowly around. A new alertness in her eyes. She licked her lips and then very deliberately pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. She sat down and took a deep breath, then folded her hands on top of the table. Despite the calm, folded hands and the steady gaze, Jerry could see that Constanza was nervous. “Yes, Jerry,” she said quietly. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”
And so Jerry began to tell.
Hours passed. She had missed most of her morning classes. It had begun to snow again, so it seemed pointless to go. The sun that had been so bright was swallowed up into a sky swirling with snow. “It’s a blizzard out there,” Constanza said when Jerry came back up from the cellar. She was carrying something in her hand. Constanza leaned forward while scratching her head. “So what you got there?” She spoke in a low whisper.
Jerry set down the letter, then the piece of stained lace. She unfolded the lace and took out the medal with the man and the squirrel perched on his shoulder. There was also a piece of shell she had found with a hole in it. It looked as if it had once been strung to wear as a pendant.
Constanza’s long fingers reached out, her hand shaking. She touched the medal. “St. Francis,” she said softly, then looked up at Jerry. “So you learned all this—all that you were telling me—from these things—this lace, this letter, this medal of St. Francis?”
“In a way. It was the beginning.” Jerry knew it would be hard to explain what had happened in her mind. Constanza looked down at the objects on the table and touched one, then the other, sometimes picking up one to look at it more closely. Jerry waited. She had nothing more to say. She hoped Constanza would not ask for anything more, any reasons or explanations of how she had come to know what she knew. It was not a dream. She thought that Constanza understood this. Minutes passed. No one spoke. Then finally Constanza rubbed the patch on her head. “Well, yes, a beginning. It’s a beginning,” she said, and got up to leave for church.
She put on her sheepskin coat. Slapped the hat on her head once more and anchored it with a scarf. Just before she walked out the door, she paused and looked back at Jerry, who was still sitting at the table. Jerry saw a guttering light in her aunt’s eyes, almost a flicker of fear, or was it embarrassment? Her strong, straight-backed aunt suddenly seemed slightly hunched and smaller. Jerry saw her bite softly on her bottom lip as if she were about to say something, but somehow her words were lost.
“It’s all right, Aunt Constanza, you go on to church. It’s okay.”
Jerry looked down at the things she had brought up from the cellar. The piece of shell looked out of place. It didn’t look as if it belonged. But it was lovely. Jerry got up to get a piece of string. She cut a length off the ball that Constanza kept in the cupboard, threaded the shell onto it, and tied it around her neck. She liked the feel of it at the base of her throat. In another minute she heard the door slam, and when she looked out the window, she saw that the twilight was now slipping into a darkness studded with snowflakes. She watched her aunt as the old lady bent herself against the wind and punched through the blizzard to her truck.
Chapter 14
IT SNOWED ALL NIGHT, and when she got up the next morning and looked out her window, she saw that the hornos had vanished entirely under huge drifts of snow. There were a few telltale feathers of smoke hovering over the drifts, and that was the only sign that beneath bread was still baking. She saw Constanza with a shovel and quickly hopped out of bed. How was that old lady going to move all that snow?
In less than five minutes she was dressed and getting her coat off the hook.
“You need a hat, foolish girl!” Constanza looked up at her niece. “Go in and get a hat if you want to help. No school today, huh? Snow day. Lucky you. You can help me all day if you like. I have a lot of orders to deliver. Time you learned how to drive in snow.”
Jerry looked hard at her aunt. Drive in snow! Was she crazy? If there was no school because of snow, why in the name of God did her aunt think this was a good day for a driving lesson? “Go in and get your hat,” Constanza cawed. “What good will you do me if your hair gets wet and you get sick?” Jerry turned to go back in.
They worked together in the cook yard all morning. It did not take them long to excavate the hornos. For the first time her aunt allowed Jerry to build the new fires for the second batches, putting in the fruitwood one piece at a time, as her aunt instructed. When the wood had burned down completely, the ashes were raked out with the wet cloth and the pans of bread slid onto the oven’s floor. Hot rocks were placed inside with damp cloths over them to block any cracks in the stove, and another rock was placed on top of the smoke hole. By midmorning the supply of split wood had run out. “Come on,” Constanza said. “You might as well learn how to split wood.”
Jerry walked with her aunt over to the woodpile, which first had to be broomed off to even reveal a log. Then her aunt put a short log on end atop the chopping block and took her splitting maul.
“Watch me. You try to swing this maul in a big circle so it comes down hard.” Jerry watched her aunt begin the swing. Her head and eyes stayed focused on the wood. There was a thunk, then a thwack sound, and the log popped apart into equal pieces.
“Now you try it.” Constanza stepped aside. “Keep the swing at full arm’s length, then you won’t chop off any of yourself.”
Lovely, thought Je
rry. There was another thunk and a thwack.
“You’re a natural.” Constanza gave a little cackle. “Too bad for you. You can split the rest of that pile. I’m taking a rest before I put in the second batch.”
Within minutes Jerry was sweating. She removed her coat and hung it on a fence post. It took her the better part of an hour to split the pile. She took the split pieces in the wheelbarrow, which was not easy to negotiate through the snow, to the ovens where they had built the new fires. She saw her aunt coming out of the house again with the dough for the second batch. She set down the plank with the flattened loaves and reached into her pocket for one of the little dough balls. Jerry was still breathing hard from her labors, and when the word came out it sounded almost more like a breath or small gasp than an actual word. But Constanza heard it: “Why?”
“Well, now, that’s a good question.” She looked down at the little dough ball in her hand, chuckled softly, then shrugged. “Not sure, really. I just do it. Superstition, I suppose. My mother did it. Her mother did it and her mother’s mother did it. Indian stuff, maybe. Some of my folks came from the Yucatán. I guess that means some of yours did too, seeing as you’re my great-grand-niece.”
Chapter 15
“NOW THE LAST THING you ever want to do if you start to skid on a patch of ice is put on the brakes. No. What you do is steer right in the direction you are skidding and let up on the gas.”
Jerry nodded and concentrated on the road. The roads didn’t seem too bad except they were climbing higher and higher on this mesa road and the banks of snow were getting deeper. They had already delivered orders to the country club as well as three restaurants downtown. But Constanza had some special customers.
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