Hunger's Brides (132 page)

This was the game of the Enemy. These were the paces through which Gutiérrez had been instructed to lead me all these years. One part truth, one part lie, the third made up of what was missing—not seen, not said, not imagined or expected, not properly read. A kind of triangle, and this third side, this edge of the blade, was by far the most terrible. Events conspired—events were now arranged—to make each day, each hour rich in possibilities, abundant with hypotheses, each single moment inexhaustible. And now it was very important to have missed nothing, if I was to face him again—not to give him hope, a sign. For the date of his coming again, this was no accident, no more than the last time had been, and not a coincidence. January 26th, 1693, the Feast of Santa Paula, the second anniversary of the sermon—so either the visit was official now, or his departure was a lie. Before going down I sat fidgeting at the studio window, the sun bright, looking across at the farrier's, the cartwright's, trying not to notice Antonia watching me collect myself.

Perhaps it was only the conjunction of two things I had not thought of together since my childhood, though I had had many occasions to contemplate each separately over the years. Events of the past few months had brought them together again. The carols for Saint Catherine, the Letter Worthy of Athena. With his two commissions, Santa Cruz had meant to link them from the start—Alexandria and heresy. Could this truly have been his game all along, was it humanly possible, such cunning? But how could he know … who among the living knew so much about my past? Núñez, Carlos, Antonia—my nephew? Who knew that much even in my family. No one. Everyone together, then? No, they were
not
all together.

I had been careless. There were messages. And now Gutiérrez was in the locutory. Why had he come—was it official? What had I missed? I could not get Palavicino out of my mind. January 26th, 1693 … Palavicino was fine, still unaware his sentence had been written. Time yet for one more dream, another plan, for a life to which he had already died, a life he would still be in love with. I told myself it was not bad to imagine him in love with his life, that this one thing was not a lie, and that they would not move against him until they felt close to having what they wanted from me, or until they had it already. One difficulty had been in keeping a firm grasp on what this was, if there was any limit to this, if it would ever end. How. Another difficulty in all these months was in keeping myself from wondering without let or cease, if I was already dead to mine. But I should not think so much about this—if I was not to give them a sign of weakness, submission, collapse. Palavicino, María de San José, the
beata
in chains, Catherine of Alexandria—reminders all, all together, not coincidence but signs, of what I had refused for as long as I could bear to recall. The charge and care of another's life, of any life save mine. A convent was the safest place, a place with walls, safer for both sides, and yet I could not protect them all, or myself, not even from inside.

And now I would go down to him. He was leaving for Manila. New Spain was finished. His work was finished. On the 27th day of January of this year, Antonio Gutiérrez, still with the Inquisition or not, left for the Philippines, or did not. They came the next morning. The sun was shining.

C
AREER
M
OVES
        

I L
ET MYSELF BELIEVE
my friends at the Calgary Police Service might not lay charges. And so far there'd been none. At that moment getting out of town looked very good. The lawyer was right. The trip Madeleine and I'd been planning together, I could take alone. Plenty of money in the bank. I'd move up my flight. I drove in to Calgary to clean out my desk towards evening, when the office staff and tenured faculty would be home. My decision was made.

By way of career transitions I gave brief consideration to a speaking tour trading on my quarter-hour of infamy, my assorted lectures to offer a moveable feast of provincial scandal, from the wilds of antediluvian Alberta to Iowa, East Anglia, Lille, Tübingen … “The Liar Paradox, an Epilogue,” “The Postmodern Minotaur (a Victimology),” “The Timeless Topos of Tupping Tutees …”

Scholar, get thee to a nunnery.

As a longer-term prospect, pariah scholar was a role I might inscribe with a certain fugitive cachet. There were pariah states: I could apply to represent them at scholarly conferences in unfriendly places. The main drawback being the prospect of meeting old colleagues—the few who've heard nothing; the many who've heard a little, or wrong; the sophisticates who chat warmly as if nothing has changed, before catching someone's eye and slipping away. And the handful to be avoided at all costs—who quietly extend their support, even friendship. Moments of stunned commiseration, a forehead pressed to yours, a hand gripping your shoulder. Buck up now, this too shall pass. One or two would have friends running little English schools in Korea or Dubai. Did I need somewhere to get my legs under me?

A sunset smouldered somewhere behind the university Art Parkade as I finished packing up my office. Into a battered leather briefcase bought cheap years back in Colombia—what had the pre-Colombian briefcase looked like? can't recall—I packed a few papers I'd been working on, and anything of a remotely personal nature.
Of a remotely personal nature
. Even friends might think this an apt character sketch, a career epitaph. I stepped out into the hallway.

I've made my share of mistakes, remotely personal. One of them
was now clicking down the hall toward me. Briefcase bulging open I stood witlessly patting my pockets for the office keys. Looking anywhere but at the approaching Department Head.

When I'd arrived two hours ago the entire floor seemed deserted. Computer screens snuffed in the secretarial station, dark grey doors closed all along the hallway. From the pavement below, the lonely scuff and whallop of a skateboard. Above my head the ashcan clank of a ventilation fan out of true.

She would come to stand slightly too close, smelling of strawberries. My options were unpromising. Dart back into the office. Or turn to contemplate the fiery sunset and let her walk by. More desperate still the imposture of staring—lost in monkish contemplation—at the floor's piebald marbling.

Red and white knotted scarf. Navy blue power suit, the skirt two brazen extra inches above the knee. Small, neat figure, good legs. Pale brown hair, straight, shoulder-length. Anita Stanwyck was bright, tough, wary. About my age, she'd fought the wars. Not fatally beautiful, she'd stayed sexy even when this had been impolitic for a woman in her position. Which was no position from which to be judging me now: She liked men, and liked them young. She'd risked some strife of her own to tear her pleasures through the iron gates of campus life.

Our department was superbly run, our funding fiercely defended, the cuts ably distributed. She had made it her mission to shield us from the ministerial wrangling—chiefly concerned with keeping the vanguard of dissent busy filling out efficiency reports—and to cope with the savaging of our course offerings. A task I knew she detested. My early departure was creating a few new administrative headaches. Final exams to invigilate and grade. Understandable that she would insist on taking over the marking herself. Any mistakes in allocating grades now would be a disaster compounded.

She stopped in front of me, face serious. Her eyes were a striking blue, bright with an author-photo sort of alacrity that people often mistook for glaring. I'd thought it myself more than once.

“Hello, Anita.”

“Need a hand?”

“Carrying my books home?”

Something stirred in her eyes, something unexpected.

“The rest of this junk,” I said, quickly nodding at the taped boxes, “I'll send for later. You don't need the office right now do you?”

“Too many empty already.”

“With me gone, you might not have to empty another next year.” A thought:
Who was next in line?

“Your friend, Relkoff.”

“Works out, then.” Now my landlord and I were even.

“You know it gives me no pleasure.”

“No, Anita, I don't believe that it does.”

“Still going to London?”

“Probably.”

“Call when you're back and settled.”

“Right.”

Absolutely time to go.

“Don?”

This is where the sad, sorry character should just keep walking.

“You did some fine work for us here over the years. For what it's worth.”

A
ll one day and then a second, the cell was stripped. Eight men, three in the Archbishop's livery. I wondered what the other five did when not doing this, I wondered where they lived. Not stripped. Some furniture was left, many pots and plates. Two beds. Upstairs a table. The glass cases, especially, had to be taken down, the bookshelves broken out. I begged them to leave the folding screens. Instructions left no room for doubt.

The table under the window, then … the tapestry at the top of the stairs.

This also they took down, but showed no interest in the door behind it. Instructions did not extend beyond these rooms, to the locutory downstairs, or views from the roof. I expected Antonia to be hurt, but she gave no sign of having seen it there. I had not known anyone could be so discreet.

The sisters of our small patio were considerate, standing pale in their doorways. Though we take a vow of poverty, we are each attached to our cells. We come to think of this place as our home, of each thing as our own. Our belonging. The cell itself is mine now: the men brought a bill of sale.

One of the men in livery I knew, the one with the kind eyes. He had come before, to bring news that the sale had been approved. I had wondered then, how a kind man could succeed in the Archbishop's service. But I had made this mistake before. When he came into my cell now with the others, he did not look up from his work. I watched him carrying out boxes and bundles, delicate instruments rolled into rugs. And watching, I was given to wonder whose eyes had been averted these many years. The Archbishop's coat of arms … I had seen it frequently. A family among Spain's most ancient. An ancestor had been a knight attached to the court of Julius Caesar, had met the Apostle James on the Spanish shore. A story if true, incomplete. Hearing it, I had once asked how an apostle of Jesus might feel, to be met by a Roman officer after Judea.