Hunger's Brides (180 page)
OW TO
F
OUND
Y
OUR
O
WN
I
NQUISITION
B. K
RANKEIT AND
O. P
ENA
,
A M
ANUAL FOR THE
M
ODERN
I
NQUISITOR
24
⦠In our view, then, the characteristic definitive of Inquisition is not persecution of the heretic, a term at once too narrow conceptually and too vague sociologically, but rather persecution of the
convert
(or false convert).
The defining structural configuration should instead be as follows. First, a society whose axes of spiritual and secular power are unstable, as during the holocaust years of the Spanish Inquisition under the newly ascendant Catholic kings. Second, the introduction of the convert, defined here as the social actor having travelled the greatest distance, both ideologically and socially, in the shortest time. Take the case of the New Christians
(conversos)
of Jewish extraction, who as a result of their conversion gain access to offices and social positions denied to members of alien faiths.
The society initially accommodates the rapidly mobile element, but not without tension from the social strata along the convert's ascent, and as these stresses threaten a social structure already defined as unstable, the Inquisition dynamic is set in motion. (Significantly, in Spain, Inquisitors are drawn from the ranks of aristocratic families jostled by the convert's arrival, while the lay familiars of the Inquisition, of solid working class stock, see themselves promoted in some sense to the stratum that the upwardly-mobile convert vacates.)
The structure now attempts to re-establish equilibrium, first by a conservative retreat into hyper-orthodoxy. The Inquisition, newly armed with codes to which no one had until recently conformed, proceeds to re-examine the convert's assimilation and de-legitimizes it ⦠in the Spanish context, this transforms New Christian into false Christian. This final operation seems almost deliberately ironic: for attempting to conform, the convert is prosecuted as a heretic (an ideological traitor, in modern terms, and
not
, we must stress, as an alien, or a spy).
This model of a structural dynamic enables us to distinguish, on this basis at least, National Socialism from the Inquisition. The Nazis, albeit informed by the spirit and methodical rigour of the Inquisition, considered the Jews not traitors or heretics but aliens to be first deported, then eliminated. Other links have been tracedâin our view more successfullyâ
to the Stalinist persecution of Bolshevik false converts, culminating in the purge trials of the 1920s and 30s.
22
A recent study provides an interesting test case for our thesis. Anderson attempts (after Graves, but with rather less documentary support) to recast the myths of Ancient Greece as the by-product of a campaign by patriarchal Hellenic invaders to extirpate the indigenous worship of the Great Mother, and then to prosecute the heroes of their Helladic cousinsâwho had previously invaded Greece and
converted
to the worship of the Triple-Goddessâfor heresy.
23
Thus we would find Sisyphus, Oedipus, Bellerophon, Orpheus, Phaëthon, Icarus, probably Achilles and even perhaps Odysseus languishing in the secret prisons of a Hellenic Inquisition, suffering its humiliations, defamations, and tortures.
The same author goes on to observe that awaiting further inquiry is the possibility of applying this reasoning to the study of appetite disorders. It is argued that women, the most mobile social actors in modern society (indeed among the few who can claim to have made dramatic progress in their agenda) have internalized the Inquisitorial dynamic and so act as auto-Inquisitors prosecuting their own âfalse conversion' to the canon of rationalist materialism, partriarchal social structures, Apollonian aesthetics â¦
UBILEE
, D
AY
2: R
AM'S
H
EAD
THE STREETâMORNING
The young monk, GABRIEL, guides Núñez through the bustling streets, down Calle de las Rejas. As they pass, conversations stop, smiles fade, a young woman crosses herself. A few blocks on, a carriage pauses in the street. One of the men from the boardroom descends and offers them a lift. Gabriel stops, but Núñez presses on as though he has not heard. As Núñez and Gabriel near the convent of San Jerónimo, an old woman kneels to receive a benediction.
Núñez and Gabriel pass without pausing, enter the convent.
INSIDE THE CONVENT LOCUTORYâDAY
NÃÃEZ
Sit closer.
JUANA
I can hear you perfectly well from here.
NÃÃEZ
And you know perfectly well I can barely see. Or is it something you smell?
Juana looks out through the bars to the little garden. An old nun busies herself outside with gardening, stealing little glances into the room
.
JUANA
I smell spearmint and sage.
NÃÃEZ
They tell me you always claim to smell smoke when I enter the room.
JUANA
And rosemary.
NÃÃEZ
Rosemary helps the memory.
25
JUANA
To remember, but not to forget.
NÃÃEZ
Odd that someone as bold as you should so fear the scent of smoke.
JUANA
Only â¦
NÃÃEZ
Finish.
JUANA
When I smell it on you.
NÃÃEZ
Ahh yes, I remember now, this unnatural fascination of yours for the
quemadero
.
VOICE-OVER: They say the priest you burned that day was jolly and rolypoly.
NÃÃEZ
My superiors have decided to take your
bet
. They would not be persuaded by my doubts. I warned them: She speaks in riddles like a prophet, stutters like Moses risen sputtering from the silent Nile. She is more subtle than Bruno, I said. They answered that Bruno would have confessed to anything at the end, had we let him.
V.O.: They say his flesh stuttered and spat like a roasting ham.
JUANA
Moses stuttered before Pharoah, not God.
NÃÃEZ
Exactly what they told me! Part the waters, they saidâby force if need be, she invites it.
Blind now to her beauty, you, Father Núñez, will see her more clearly than any of us could.
We have her silence already, I protested. But the silence of the Nile is a pagan silence. We must baptize her silence, make it Christian, they said. It is we who decide what her silence shall say.
I told them, she will confess to a fabricated whole so as to evade conviction for the real particulars.
We have experience in such matters, they answered. No individual can stand against this.
JUANA
Guileful, I will catch myself with guile.
NÃÃEZ
Prideful, you will catch yourself with
pride
. You are your own worst enemy. A house divided. They are counting on this.
You say nothing now.
Sit closer.
She drags her chair forward
.
NÃÃEZ
Closer!
Knees now touch the grate
.
Núñez leans forward until his lips brush the latticework
.
Voice falls to a whisper
.
NÃÃEZ
You are the dramatist, Sor Juana. If I return to play my part, are you up to playing yours? I warn you, God will not be tested. If you leap, no host of angels will break your fall.
[sits back in his chair]
Begin.
Hands clasped in her lap, forcing herself to look past his face, she begins
.
JUANA
I have been willful and filled with pride.
NÃÃEZ
You will do better than this!
JUANA I
have gloried in my obstinacy.
NÃÃEZ
You feel contempt for your superiors.
JUANA
I only thought the value of my learning equal to theirs.
NÃÃEZ
You think you can outlive us.
JUANA
The Holy Mother Church is eternal. I am a corrupt bag of flesh.
NÃÃEZ
Yes. Gabriel out there tells me you are fat and sleek as a cow. You think you have suffered.
JUANA
I have fasted.
NÃÃEZ
You think you can outwit us.
JUANA
No.
NÃÃEZ
No, no, no?' This is your full and sincere confession? For this we are to offer you your Jubilee?
[pause]
Say it.
JUANA
Say what?
NÃÃEZ
Say it
.
JUANA
Jubilee.
NÃÃEZ
Tell me what it means to you.
JUANA
My Jubilee will be a renewal, a restoration. A new beginningâ¦.
NÃÃEZ
Do you think I did not hear you savouring the word? Did you think I would not know that
Jubilee
once meant a time when the fields lay fallow and all lands reverted to their former owners?
You speak in codes. This Jubilee you plan is a rebellion! Like that of your martyr, Hermenegild.
Do you doubt that I know you?
JUANA
No.
NÃÃEZ
Then know beyond doubt that I will transform this Jubilee you have begged for into a ram's headâto batter down your defences as at a trumpet blast, trample your doubts, reduce this wall you have built around yourself to rubbleâ¦.
[pause]
Do you doubt this?
JUANA
T is why I have asked for you.
NÃÃEZ
I have waited twenty-five years for you to come to your senses. I am out of patience.
And do not succumb to the fatal delusion that because I have come again, because I have been sent, that my hands are tied. Know that I have been freed to stop coming any time I decide. To simply stop. No explanations asked.
Tomorrow I will be leaving the city for Zacatecas. Days or weeks, I cannot be sure. But while I am gone, by all means, playwright, write your lines well. Because if I elect to return, you will give me what I want.
V.O.: Behold the Warrior Priest departing on a long tour of the battlefield. See the narrow hands that curb the mighty, the heart of rock that feeds despair ⦠the basilisk's slow stone thighs propel it across the lone and level sands; like unto the King of Men, its majesty scarcely to be borne, away it slouches towards Bethlehem â¦
FADE OUT
UANA
I
NÃS DE LA
C
RUZ
⦠O Providence most high! Who here contests
that the Law of Grace, through Heaven's influence
found its fulfilment and champion
in Egypt's Catherine?
Just as in its pure translation of Moses
Egypt kept His commandments inviolate,
the Gospels found in Catherine of Egypt
their minister and advocate.
All the more so, if the Crossâ
despised in Rome and Judeaâ
among its hieroglyphs, Egypt worshipped
long before, on the breast of Serapis.
Thus did Catherine inherit
in the very blood of Egypt (though vitiated by its cults)
an ardent zeal for Law and Cross,
and in her veins did God distil perfection from viciousness.
Her martyrdom was for the Cross, and upon itâ
since the opposite diameters of the Wheel enthrone,
at the heart of four right angles,
the Cross as its sovereign figure.
And on that circle Catherine was crucified,
though she did not die within it:
the circle being the divine hieroglyph of the Infiniteâ
instead of finding death, she was given Life.
Rejoice, blessed Egypt, at this blossoming,
of so many regal branches the renewal,
for in this one Rose of Alexandria,
God has granted thee an eternal Spring.
26
UBILEE
, D
AY
16: F
ORMULAS
EXT. THE PLAZA DE SANTO DOMINGOâAFTERNOON
Small, hunchbacked figure exits the Palaces of the Inquisition, crosses the street. Here Father Núñez needs no guide. Shuffles across the plaza; little knots of people part for him. Enters the Church of Santo Domingoâhis favourite in all of Mexico.
INSIDE THE CHURCH
Dark reddish light. Red stained glass, pillars of the same meaty marble, walls of red igneous rock. To one side, a coral-coloured altar. Red stone and gold, the Conquistador's harvest.
Núñez shuffles up the aisle and sits on a bench near the altar. Face lost in thought. Time passes.
INSIDE THE CONVENT LOCUTORYâEARLY EVENING
NÃÃEZ
Name.
JUANA
¿Perdón?
NÃÃEZ
Your
name
.
JUANA
Sorâ
NÃÃEZ
The one your father gave you!
JUANA
Juana Inés RamÃrez de Asbaje.
NÃÃEZ
Were you not born into bastardyâillegitimate?
JUANA
Fui hija natural de la Iglesia
.
NÃÃEZ
As I said, a bastard. Did your father not leave you suddenly and without warning?
JUANA
You know this to be true.
NÃÃEZ
Were you baptized? Have you heard the Christian doctrine predicated? Have you communicated it to others?
JUANA
[she pales]
Why do you use the formulas of the Inquisition against me?
NÃÃEZ
Did he not flee because he was a secret Judaizer?
JUANA
Is this now about heresy?
NÃÃEZ
We have already bet on your apostasy. Did you think we could not raise the ante?
Do you believe in the reality of dreams? Have you sought visions in the taking of banned plants and substances?
JUANA
There is no need for this.
NÃÃEZ
Have you attempted to take auguries by means of hags or false seers, in the readings of palms or stars or in playing cardsâ
JUANA
This is nonsense.
NÃÃEZ
Or by means of weasels, or
pinauiztli
beetles?âor by the throwing of corn grains, or the mixing of blood and ashes.
JUANA
Truly Father, this is unworthy of you.
NÃÃEZ
You seem offended, Sor Juana.
Have you sought omens in the hooting of owls, the breaking of mirrors, the paths of black butterflies? Or in the patterns of the
épatl's
urinations on the groundâ
JUANA
Will you please desist from these puerilities!?
NÃÃEZ
Such fearlessness, Sor Juana, such haughty defiance!âor is that indignation?
JUANA
Surely we have more important mattersâ
NÃÃEZ
So eager to do philosophical battleâit is precisely your intellectual pride that offers the first point of attack. How quickly you would dispense with all this pettiness and bring us directly to loftier, infinitely more dangerous matters. Saint Catherine stretched upon the wheel! Perhaps your breath quickens at the thought of tortureâ
JUANA
Might yours, if our positions were reversed?
NÃÃEZ
My
position â¦
is awkward. As your former confessor and as an officer of the Inquisition, I think you can see my testimony, my involvement in this caseâ
JUANA
Case? I asked you here to help me renew my vows.
NÃÃEZ
Every case is different. Think of these sessions as a dress rehearsal. There will be many such insults to your pride. Clearly you are unprepared.
If we are unsuccessful, you and I, at least you will be well-drilled for the next step.
[pauses; eyes turning vaguely toward the light]
But as is natural with you, you are only thinking of yourself. Think of this:
confiscation of all your family's properties as a precaution against flight
.
JUANA
Yes, property. I have heard the man your Inquisitors most fear is the Holy Office's accountant.
NÃÃEZ
As an accountant yourself, you understand such things.
Then consider this the audit of your soul
.
How good that you can still make jokes about the Inquisition. Make a joke of what the priest will say in private the next time someone comes to ask that
una sobrina
or nephew or grand-niece of yours be baptized.
But of course you can joke because you believe there can be no charges.
JUANA
What charges?âtell me, Father Núñez.
NÃÃEZ
You scheme to win back my protection, yet you should also understand that I cannot protect you
in there
.
Let us suppose for a momentâ
only a moment
âthat I can be persuaded to disqualify myself from testifying against you. You should hope for that. Yes, hope for
that. Though
that
would in turn necessarily preclude my intervening in your behalf.
Yet what I am not sure you grasp completelyâyour inexperience in these matters is understandableâis that the Inquisition, you see, does not need my testimony.
Testimony never lacks.
JUANA
They would solicit false statements? You would be party to this?
NÃÃEZ
Calumnies from the envious, from those who stand to gain ⦠what could be more natural?
But, in fact, the most effective testimony comes not from those who bear false witness but instead from those who have seen wonders. All will want to tell the miracles they have seen, the prodigies of your own childhood, even when they have seen nothing at all. Your fellow sisters will fall all over themselves to testify that verily! they have seen you levitating.
So our Inquisitors will ask you to levitate for themâ¦.
They do what they can to sort the evidence.
JUANA
But they're only human, after all.
NÃÃEZ
Good, good. I see even on the threshold of tragedy, irony does not quite desert you. And what a powerful weapon you shall fashion of it when you face down your accusers!
But you will
never
face your accusers, Juana Inés, never even know their names. Your judges then: confront your judges at the trial! Which brings us to the key pointâfor you, though not for them, or me. Your innocence. Know this: Your âinnocence' will hold not the slightest interest.
The sole purpose of your trial or trials ⦠shall be to extract and properly record your confessionâ
JUANA
You are enjoying yourself.
NÃÃEZ
Yet if we are already at the trial, it means we have skipped over your months or years in the Inquisition's secret prisons. And have passed over the gross familiarity of the contact there. But, there it is, we have glossed over the truly essential point for long enough: your humiliation. For you the humiliation will be the worst.
From the moment of your arrest you will be led by your vanity and arrogance into a widening gyre of resistance, rebellion and provocation. From there to insolence, thence to impudence and on to blasphemy until, far from forcing a confession from you, they will not be able to prevent you from favouring them with your most unorthodox and original ideas, on God's love, for example.
But then perhaps to prolong your agony they will instead suspend judgement. And release you until such timeâyears may passâas it pleases them to reopen the proceedings.
JUANA
Truly, you are in fine form Father. They said you were frail.
But we have already gone over this.
NÃÃEZ
Only to return to where we have been all along, and to what you have long known: your best chance, your best
bet
â
JUANA
Is here with you.
NÃÃEZ
So ⦠choose.
A long silence ⦠that she refuses to break
.
NÃÃEZ
Before I return to this placeâ
if
I returnâI want it stripped bare. Everything but the
enconchada
of Guadalupe. The Archbishop should have taken all this away in the first place.
And take away these chairs.
Next time I will have you on your knees! And next time you will not come to me fat and powdered and perfumed like you were receiving your aristocrats.
JUANA
I am wearing no scent.
NÃÃEZ
Meditate well during my absence. I will have much more from you than this, or my next time here will be my lastâ¦.
At the door, Núñez pauses, turns to Gabriel
.
NÃÃEZ
Is the arrangement of this locutory not somehow different from the others Gabriel?
GABRIEL
Yes, Father.
NÃÃEZ
How, exactly?
GABRIEL
In the others are metal gratesâ¦. Here, a wooden lattice separates the sisters from their visitors.
NÃÃEZ
And is this lattice elaborate and ornate, or does memory deceive?
GABRIEL
Very beautifully made.
NÃÃEZ
[without turning to face her]
Sor Juana, why is this locutory different? Some special reason?
JUANA
No. No special reason.
NÃÃEZ
No special function? Nothing extraordinary takes place in here?
JUANA
No.
NÃÃEZ
In the past, perhaps.
JUANA
Not special.
NÃÃEZ
[pause]
Make it like the others, Juana.
Do you understand me?
JUANA
Yes, Father, I understand you.
NÃÃEZ
Supervise the work yourself.
The workmen, they say, will do anything for you.