Hunger's Brides (74 page)

“Manuscripts may be suppressed for many reasons, Sor Juana, and not solely by the Holy Office …”

“What are you getting at?”

“The proposals you and Carlos sent over created a great stir in Madrid.”

“You know even this.”

“Very bold, very inventive. Refinements to the pendulum. A musical clock—admirable. Your idea, I understand. Other notions for marine chronometers—such stunning breakthroughs for navigation, strategic advantages to the Crown … if they could be made to work, if the proper studies could be funded, tests of your designs. A pity to have destroyed them.”

“What?”

“Your Queen buys bread on credit, Juana. Perhaps you think the Crown's bankruptcy a figure of speech. There is no money for studies. Yet if those designs were to end up with the Portuguese, or the English, or worse yet the Netherlanders … So you see, you divide not just the Jesuit scientists, Juana—you and now Carlos—but the Queen's scientific soothsayers also. About half were in favour of saving them, no doubt with thoughts of brokering a quiet sale. Yes, I am surprised your don Payo did not think to tell you. As are you, I see. But Carlos must have made copies, yes?”

“Even from Madrid, don Payo reports to you.”

“To
us
, Sor Juana, he writes to us. Always this exaggeration of my influence. In some quarters, I think, your imagination hinders you. You imagine you know him, but do you know His Grace left Mexico in such a hurry so as not to miss the
auto
in Madrid? No, I thought not. By all accounts—and I have read several—it put those of our poor Mexico to shame. Thirty-four burned in effigy, nineteen more in the flesh, twelve burned alive.
Twelve
. And two women, this time…. You
do
know he sat with the Queen Mother. No, not even that? In the royal box, with that dwarf of hers your Leonor prated on so about. What was her name? It was so long ago.”

“Had I told you a century ago, you'd still know.”

“Yes. ‘Lucillo.'
I
imagine them that day discussing your
Martyr of the Sacrament
together, at breaks. Now. You have called me here, you have come this far. Am I expected to offer my help?”

“Help, Your Reverence?”

“You stall but do not refuse it outright. Well then. How shall I oblige you—by asking how you and our new Vice-Queen are getting on? Something of a poet, this one, though I am a poor judge. And she is a Manrique! Countess of Paredes, no less. How perfect for you both.”

“The knighthood of the Manriques was not always such an amusement, Father. Your saintly Loyola did not jeer at the Order of Santiago, nor did he refuse it. At least I don't recall your ever saying so. Need I remind you?—when the Marquis and the Countess first announced their intention to visit me here, did I not plead for
two days
to be allowed to remain secluded in my cell?”

“But the Mother Prioress denied you—”

“At your insistence—why
was
that?”

“And how assiduously you have been attending them, Sor Juana, to have missed confession so often lately—and how many of our Thursdays together?”

“Two, Father. Only two.”

“Countess of Walls! Marquis of the Lake! How Fate makes Life convenient to your poetry—how your poetry bends you towards your fate. Allegorical Neptune!
Water
, again.”

“The arch was a cathedral commission, the Chapter approved it—unanimously, as you well know.”

“And do you call her María Luisa yet? Have you explained to this new one about
your past?
How it was with the other one?
Queen of the Baths.”

“Always these imaginings
of yours
, Reverence, about the baths at El Péñon.”

“Have you explained to her your new aqueous theology?”

“Is it impious on my part that duty has blossomed into loving friendship for her, whereas Your Reverence guides the immortal soul of her husband, though you harbour no feelings for him whatever? And once again you confess Viceroy and Vicereine both.”

“It is not a question of feelings.”

“This too has changed with you, Father. It was not always so.”

“I suppose you profess some admirable depth of feeling for the Archbishop-
elect.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“Only to say your manoeuvring with the Bishop of Puebla carries risks. But no, forget I mentioned it. He is after all another protégé of don Fray Payo.”

“Is there a problem with the Bishop's election? What do the
Jesuits
know of it?”

“As for whom I confess, it will be the new Archbishop's privilege to confess the Vice-Queen, if he wishes it. But as you say, the Viceroy will likely remain with me. Or do you call him Neptune now?”

“How unlike you, Father, to misspeak.
Do the Jesuits have another candidate?”

“Was it the comet, Sor Juana?”

“Was what the comet—the comet is gone.”

“Yes, precisely. Two days ago. And here we are. Like sorcery.”

“No magic I possess tells me on which nights Your Reverence will deign to appear. And on that subject might we not try the everyday magic of a lantern, Father? It is getting rather dark.”

“But you
have
been busy reassuring the Vice-Queen.”

“She spoke to you of this.”

“We have conversations, much as you and I—”

“Told you in
confession.”

“Conversations.”

“Intended to terrify her—‘God's Wrath.'”

“And how did you reassure her, Juana? With Galilei's rubbish about comets hiding behind the moon? Did you show it to her in your telescope, show her the moon's face—
poxed like a whore's?
Did that reassure? Nothing divine about it, nothing heavenly in the heavens!”

“That, Father, you will
never
hear me say.”

“Tell me—I never understood it, why they hide behind the moon…. Great elliptical orbits, was it not, out among the heavenly spheres? How helpful the Chair of Mathematics and Astrology could have been in comforting your new friend. A shame you and Carlos are not getting along.”

“We will sort it out. As we always do.”

“I am glad to hear it. Because the spectacle of New Spain's two brightest children squabbling is less than inspiring. You of course are entitled, you are only thirty-two, but Carlos is old enough to know better.
How like you to turn on an old friend.”

“But such venom, Your Reverence. Is it really over me? or still over your slip about the election. The Archbishop-
elect
will be intrigued.”

“Your poor Carlos, how confused he must be. Privately, you share his view that the comet is a natural event, yet write a sonnet glorifying his
adversary's position. A position Carlos has risked much to denounce as superstition, and is being attacked for it even now. These natural philosophical debates are filled with such—”

“Vitriol, Father?—spleen? Yes how ill-humoured these natural magicians, and in comparison how benign the gentle quibbles of theology must seem.”

“I have noticed how amusing you can be precisely—”

“So Your Reverence may catch his breath.”

“No, Sor Juana. Precisely when you are in moral difficulties. You seem to be distancing yourself from don Carlos lately, who is, unlike you, hopeless at diplomacy. His
arco
caused the Viceroy precisely as much annoyance as yours gave delight.”

“He was lucky not to be arrested.”

“Perhaps this makes Carlos a hindrance to you now, or perhaps you feel justified after he insulted you. What was it he called you afterwards?
Una limosnera de leyendas!”

“Mendiga de fabulas.”

“Fable beggar, yes, thank you. A sharp quill, your friend has. It might have been better to keep him as a friend.”

“Why do the Jesuits not reinstate him?”

“You seek to ease your conscience, Juana, by taking up his cause. But I will tell you. We prefer to have don Carlos looking in. He does more to restrain himself this way. The Company would be too small for one such as he, whereas you, for all your attempts at caution and secrecy, your deepest impulses are—”

“After all the petitions he has made, it is pure cruelty.”

“You want us to solve your problems for you. How many petitions of marriage has he made to you? Have you no loyalty?
Are you proud of what you have done to your friend
—by siding with his adversary?”

“I …
no.”

“Was it
wrong?”

“I
said I was not proud of it.”

“Yet your conscience does not trouble you. It has been weeks and I have heard not one word of this in confession.”

“You have often been away. Zacatecas, I imagine.”

“That is why this convent has a chaplain. For the times when your spiritual director must be absent. But you have not confessed this to him, either.”

“You sound certain.”

“False confession, Sor Juana, is a most serious matter. I know also why you have sent for me.”

“Do you.”

“You have been planning this for weeks.”

“And if you know—
how
do you?”

“For weeks and yet you have delayed, and delay even now. I will help you one last time.
Tell me what you are writing.”

“If you think you know, Father, why do
you delay
—why not just be forthright?”

“That a nun,
a woman in my charge
, is now called Tenth Muse from Cadiz to Lima to Manila is already utterly repugnant to me! Had I known you would waste your convent life on verses I would have married you off!”

“You think me a dog or a slave to dispose of.”

“But with this latest, you make it impossible for me to defend you, Juana.”

“Defend me! You think I do not hear of them—the reproaches you make against me to anyone who'll listen? You call my conduct a scandal, you make the substance of my confessions a public matter. Defend me—there's not a man in New Spain to stand up to you. Even the Marquis himself—Regent of half the world—
fears
you. The last viceroy still writes from Spain to ask your guidance. Now I ask you, Your Reverence, to tell me what I have done to so infuriate you this time.”

“In which role have you conspired to make me look the greater fool, as your confessor or New Spain's Censor?—in the plays or in the verses?
Tenth Muse
. Can you not grasp how obscene that epithet is for any Catholic, let alone one of
my
nuns?”

“Even the Holy Virgin has been called the Tenth Muse lately—would you censor her too?”

“Do not push me too far.”

“Is that prospect so fantastic—when your Office has just banned the
Mystical City
, a set of parables on the Virgin's life?”

“Not parables, Sor Juana, prophecies. For some nuns it is not enough that María should be the Mother of God. No, they must make her into something
more.”

“But this still isn't it, is it Father. They have been calling me Muse for some time. This is not quite what makes you so …
passionate.”

“A bride of Christ under my direction composing love poetry—”

“Yes?”

“On
Sappho.”

“At last.”

“What could possibly
be
more of a—”

“Humiliation?”

“A disgrace!
I am your spiritual director
, charged with the safe conduct of a nun's soul to her Husband's embrace. I should know every single detail of your life, every thought, every dream. The contents of your soul should be spread wide for me to inspect. And now—yet again!—you've defiled the sacrament of confession by your lies of omission.”

“I
defile it, Father? And what of the sacramental seal? And if my privacy means nothing to you, how long am I to conceal from María Luisa the contempt in which you hold hers?”

“‘María Luisa.' Only your Countess could make you think to get away with this.
Sappho
. Who could even have
imagined
this outrage—poetry to a Lesbian
puta!”

“You forget yourself, Father, you forget where you are, you forget who is the true Master of this house—and make it abundantly clear you have no idea what you are talking about.”

“But I
will
know. You will bring these …
things
to me and we will read them together, then burn—together—each and every one, down to the last scrap, the last strip of paper!”

“No, Father,
we
will not.”

“Now you defile your vow of
obedience
and revel in it!”

“No, Father, I do
not
. But saintliness is not a thing you command. No being of free will—I, last of all—can be brought to God by coercion. If it could be commanded, my soul would have already ascended to Heaven a hundred times. Tell me, does my correction fall to Your Reverence by reason of obligation or charity? I too have my obligations. If it be charity then proceed gently. I am not of so servile a nature as to bend to such mercies, as you well know—”

“I see we reach the part you have been rehearsing.”

“Any sacrifices I make are undertaken to mortify my spirit and not to avoid censure, no matter how public. From you—such has always been my love and veneration—I could bear anything, any amount of injustice,
in private
. But these public humiliations, these extravagant … exaggerations unjustly tar this convent's good name.”

“What little remains of it.”

“Everyone in the capital listens to your words and trembles at their stern import as though you were a prophet of old, as though they were dictated by the Holy Ghost—”

“Go carefully.”