Hunger's Brides (143 page)

If Núñez comes here to threaten this, or to lie, with no credible assurances that he can return that spite to her jar, then he will discover for himself that it is not the all-powerful who grips the helm of Necessity, but the unforgetting Furies. My memory is my own, hereinafter. He will not take this palace again. And not all the windows are bricked shut. I remember those grey eyes—colour of cooling lead, yet not quite cool, the horror and the elation in them. I remember his strange speech, curious un-Christian admissions, the smell of his cassock. I smell it still, and I have begun to wonder if Núñez does not also. I remember other things, on other days, and still other rumours that I have heard, and can attest to. And I too will be believed. There is a weakness in his position. It smells of smoke. And he should hope that I find it before long.

For if he miscalculates again and Magda gets her chapter, then so too does Dorantes—at least one to add to the collection of Manuel de Cuadros. Even if it means giving him two. And they will have their rebellion and their fight, though against the Holy Office we cannot win …

…. O friend, if keeping back

Would keep back age from us, and death, and that we might not wrack

In this life's humane sea at all, but that deferring now

We shund death ever—nor would I half this vain valour show,

Nor glorify a folly so, to wish thee to advance:

But … there are infinite fates of other sort in death….

Which (neither to be fled nor scap't) a man must sink beneath—

Come, try we if this sort be ours and either render thus

Glory to others or make them resign the like to us.
³⁷

“I
prayed that you might come.”

“Your prayers did not bring me. I was sent.”

“You're looking well.”

“I am not looking well—I am told neither are you.”

“Might we not light a candle before it is quite dark?”

“
No more of your evasions.”

“Surely a little light—”

“Even with your life in the balance you cannot help yourself. Insolent wretch—I see perfectly well like this. I see
you
better—throne room of the Nun-Empress. I could not bear the sight of this place then—this auction house, these
toys
. Candlelight will not improve it now.”

“Does nothing remain of your feelings for me?”

“As much as remains of my youth.”

“And has age so hardened you?”

“Age does a lot of things. As you are now discovering. And in you I discover my worst mistakes. I should have left you with the Carmelites.”

“I would be dead today.”

“At San José you would be buried, but not lost—dead, but not for all Eternity. Yet what is even this, next to Sor Juana's boundless knowledge, immortal Fame? I do not hear you. Perhaps you would like me to believe you have changed. That you now believe worse things exist than death.”

“This I believe.”

“Than obscurity.”

“Yes.”

“Than
ignorance?”

“I only sought to make of my mind a vessel worthy—”

“This is why you begged that I come?—to sing me this old song, to justify yourself? None of this matters now, Sor Juana. None of it, not to anyone. Not your poetry, not your experiments, not your precious studies. Except as each and all attest to your total indifference to the life of a bride of Christ.”

“Indifferent?—never.”

“Your conduct betrays you. You have reproduced within these walls the earthly world you vowed to forsake, surrounded yourself with—”

“Gifts. Most from friends of the Church—I've given them away.”

“No, you let him take them. Hardly the same. But things can be reacquired. As you say, they cost you nothing.”

“No, Father. I only said they were gifts.”

“They assured me your suffering was genuine, but they do not know your theatrical talents as I do. You feign illness, distraction—”

“What do you know of this?”

“Do you think you are not watched in here, Sor Juana, do you think you are not
seen?
And now you feign contrition. Anything to persist in your defiance—”

“Father Núñez, could it be you have not heard my statement read?”

“So vast the sins, so meagre the details. Yes. The statement,
the plea
. Nothing has changed.”

“No, Your Reverence, you're wrong. This winter …”

“This winter.”

“The 24th of February …”

“A
Jubilee?
—you dare mention that to
me
. A general confession? The fasting, the trials, the meditations—it was too much once, why go through this with you again? All the sins of your life?—twenty-five years of
new
abominations. It would take
weeks.”

“I am ready.”

“You think you are but I am not. Neither of us is young anymore. I have not been well. No. Find someone else.”

“There is no one else. You must see that. Who knows me as you do? I need your clarity—”

“Seduction—more flattery. It's always the same game with you. But even you, Sor Juana, cannot seduce them all. If you could, I would not be here. The Vice-Queen despises you. The Viceroy has let himself be convinced your sympathies lie with the seditionists, if you are not yourself one of them. Those Creoles who do not hate you for your service to him are made anxious by the spectacle of your rebellion before the Church. Even your don Carlos is away a lot these days, I notice.”

“He too was sent. He too performs services for a higher power. Another mission to map bad-weather harbours. A prudent undertaking, in such uncertain weather. He has always travelled among the people, Father, as have you … wandered quite far afield.”

“I am told you would not say good-bye to this dear friend you are
somewhat late in defending. Have you ever said good-bye
to anyone?
So quiet now. No clever reply?”

“Truly, Father, why have you come? Have I given no sign that those who have sent you seek—no proof, no
evidence?
You once said there were many working on my case, to interpret my hieroglyphs. Is there not some writing of mine that might now satisfy them? Please, Father? A letter, a
manuscript
I might surrender?”

“Your cell has been voided.”

“Some ill-considered offence against the sacraments—my House of Bread, my writings on the sacrament of water?”

“Your cell has been voided.”

“Yes.”

“No. You are playing for time. If only the weather would improve, the earthquakes would stop, if only, if if if. So many hypotheses. But in a time of so much strangeness, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is one prodigy too many. I once heard you boast this city was yours. It is not yours now—you are detested by the pious no less than by
los nepantlas
. And it has scarcely started. The things the rabble already says: Malinche, Malinchista—how painful, given where you are from. Yes, the sacrament of water, the house of bread—soon it will be the humble people of the barrios who denounce you, those for whom you have written such heartfelt carols. If only you could convince them that the time of calamity is truly over, it was all happenstance—hazard and not God's wrath, but that is impossible. They are not natural philosophers, they do not reason as you do.”

“I have read their histories. Some have survived, some we may still interpret, Father. Do you not think it possible that some new wonder might surface to surprise us all?”

“What do you
mean
—would you win my confidence with this double-talk?
T
he only tales of wonder the people of your city have an appetite for now, Sor Juana, are told by my condisciple, Martínez—and that appetite is insatiable, and these are people of every class. On a Thursday afternoon he could fill the cathedral itself. Six editions of his sermons, stories largely about the Devil.
There
is a publishing success for you. How is it that you, Juana, who are so quick to make poetry on our theology, have written so little of Satan? I have always wondered. On this point you were always so evasive, even for you. Do you ever give him a moment's thought? Is he still a scholar, your Lucero—yes, there
is a clever character, sly. You might make him comical now. Such comical stories Martínez tells of Satan thanking false priests, bishops with concubines, the mighty making false confessions. You have seen how quickly they turned even on the mother prioress whose case has become so notorious these past days. Condemned to eternal perdition for a single omission of a carnal sin during her girlhood. How the people applaud this, Martínez tells me. And how they would turn on you, if they knew the depths of viciousness your false confessions conceal.
Queen of the Baths
. That balcony where you and your Marquise spent so many jaded afternoons, Juana Inés, it is gone. It is ashes. The people of
your
city have burned her wing to the ground.”

“Have you come to hear me beg? This time will be different. My word must still be worth something. If I promised those who sent you my discretion …? My submission.”

“You used me, you use me now.”

“I needed you.”

“My influence. You used it to abuse the generosity of a Church that gave you a home when you had nowhere else to go.
Take your word—
do you even know what the truth is anymore?”

“I need you. It is the truth.”

“But you do not say why—”

“But I have tried.”

“Why
else
. Tell me. The plain truth, from one whose word I am to take. Tell me why I am the one, why Arellano will not do—why
else.”

“Your influence … with the Holy Office.”

“Yes, better. So let us speak calmly and plainly, one last time. As we used to. Father to daughter. Your friend Palavicino has destroyed himself defending you. He thought to make his mark. He has made it. The man has no idea. And now he has made an application to enter the Holy Office as an
examiner
, when he is about to be examined
before
it. Ulloa has already written out his sentence. Lashes, banishment … In a few days the Tribunal will issue a proclamation, naming him in the sentence and you among the charges, to be posted and read in every church in the New World. And throughout Spain I take it. You may take this as a compliment. Any proceedings against you here, I have not been made privy to. But then, that is the procedure. And Dorantes will miss no opportunity to use procedure to embarrass me. As for any remaining influence I might have with the Holy Office, I have it very much in
spite of you. How long did you think it would be before I had the preface of your latest volume read out to me? ‘Phoenix of America … Glory of the New Eden, Glory of her Sex.' Did you think that if every poet and scholar in Spain wrote a letter in praise of you that it could protect you for
five minutes
here? Do you think that your countess, the King, Queen, Pope—all eight Urbans—all the civilized world banded together could stay the Archbishop's hand on the day he decides to move against you
here?
This is the New World, Juana Inés. Our New World.
Do
you?”

“No …”

“That day is not far distant, I assure you. You are a nun of the convent of Saint Jerome of the Imperial City of Mexico. Our authority over you is absolute, inescapable, implacable, eternal. Or is it truly possible you still fail to understand this? Do you imagine the Archbishop needs the Inquisition to deal with a miserable country nun, be he so moved? The Inquisition, Sor Juana—you would be begging for it within a week. Do you doubt it?—
do you doubt it.”

“No
. No I do not doubt it.”

“So this time will be different.”

“Yes.”

“And what of this ‘destiny' of yours—have you now abandoned it?
You thought you had a calling
. So now, yet another change of heart? I do not hear you, Juana Inés.”

“I thought …”

“A calling to what? Do you even know—did you ever? If you are to have me believe you have abandoned it, should we not know what it was? To
greatness
, perhaps? But no that was my error. If you thought that…. And another of my mistakes to tell you my hopes. I was wrong. There is none in you. And now you want me back.”

“All my life—”

“If those are tears I hear, I want none of them. The time for us to cry together is long past.”

“Father, since I was a girl, you have asked a choice of me. Palace or convent, convent cell or prison cell. All my life I have fought you. I
choose
this now.”

“Choice? I asked you to
serve
. Choice was always your idea. I have never cared how.”

“But Saint Ignatius …”

“I asked you to search your conscience, I asked you to reflect upon the sins and crimes of your past, even as you now beg me to do with you, just as you refused me then. I only mentioned Loyola when I could not rid you of that antiquated nonsense.
To serve a prince in the field
, wasn't that the phrase—that was
your
design. Not mine. I have never much cared how you served. Was that not your
calling
, or have you forgotten it? To serve one who asks more of himself than he commands …?”