Hunger's Brides (96 page)

“Who is the Eagle of the Apocalypse, Juana?—
¡caray!”

“'Tonia, if you're angry now, look at the third paragraph, where he complains about your handwriting.”

So that you might see yourself in letters more clearly traced, I have had your letter printed …

“What? Oh.” She almost manages a smile. “And now
ese hijo de la mierda
expects you to be grateful?—what he wants is everyone to see how clever he is!”

Pacing in and out of the room reeling off questions and curses, reading out loud, whirling about at each turn, tresses swinging out like rope ends, Antonia is becoming quite magnificent in her fury. I would not like Santa Cruz's chances if he were here. It is almost as if she truly hated him. But whatever her past grievances with Santa Cruz I have my own to nurse just now. And yes, talk of the Apocalypse I also could have done without.

“Now if you'd like to try something truly difficult, Tonia, try reading, talking, cursing, asking and answering your own questions and the next hundred of
mine.”

No, furious was easier—her face looks awful. Seeing it, I have the sickening sense of one who has been dreading something so long she has forgotten what it was.

“Toñita, would you give me some time to think this through? Then we'll get to work,
mi amor. ¿De acuerdo?”

She goes into the study, greenish eyes glowing, rattles purposefully about at the workbench, getting ready to take dictation. I have no idea what ‘work' means, but it felt good to say.

This beggars belief. How can he be so stupid—can he not see what he's done? We've done this together a dozen times. A private letter has every advantage, advantages a published one lacks. Power: in possession. Control: in choosing who gets access. Elusiveness: the letter is a ghost. The target hears snippets, conflicting versions, is never sure to have heard it all, to have seen the whole shape of the plot. Fighting it, Núñez feels himself flailing about, sees the hapless spectacle of ridicule he makes. But all the advantages are as dust: it's the
liabilities
that count. The letter in private circulation is a rumour—published, it is evidence. And here the target is the Chief Censor of the Holy Inquisition! Publication plays right into his hands.

We have made him a gift of his revenge, and made taking it his duty.

But Santa Cruz has never been stupid. He knows the game better than anyone. He taught it to me. This is not a blunder. Is this to be some sort of lesson in the finer points of obedience? Then there has been some misunderstanding, I have given him no
cause
. He talks of gratitude—but how have I been ungrateful?
And if as your letter claims, the more one receives from God the more one owes in return, few creatures find their accounts more in arrears than yours, for few have been bequeathed such talents …
He paraphrases Saint Augustine. He mocks me with my own past …
Indeed let the rich galleon of your genius sail freely, but on the high seas of the divine perfections
… This is my examination by the scholars at the palace! But twenty years ago? I have never spoken to Santa Cruz about this. He was still in Spain—or is this about my Columbus and the
Martyr of the Sacrament?
He mocks me through my works. Mentions the mastery of Saint Joseph to tar another of my plays—or my carols, sung in Santa Cruz's own cathedral this year—then deliberately confuses Joseph with Moses as a pretext for maligning the learning of Egypt. Calls it barbarous, and slyly denigrates my passion for Alexandria.
… movements of the stars and heavens … disorder of the passions …
Can this be about my carols on Saint Catherine? Yet if he was unhappy why give me the commission?

No, this is not a lesson, this is a
provocation
. Catherine, Athena—he mocks me through my past, my work, my sex—
our
sex. Sor Philothea.
Athenagoric, worthy of Athena
, she titles it. Such wisdom, such energetic clarity. Such honours to our sex.

But these are just provocations, dear Philothea, these are not so far from threats.
Nor do I subscribe to the vulgar prohibition of those who assail the
practice of letters in women … Letters that engender arrogance, God does not want in a woman…. lead a woman from a state of submission…
.

A friend would not do this.

It is night. Pleading illness I have asked to be excused from the prayers of Compline. Everyone knows why. I insist Antonia go.

Publishing the letter, Santa Cruz deliberately exposes me. He publishes it in full. Even where I close stressing once again that this is for his eyes only. In a private letter, such a closing is what it seems to be. Published, it makes me look like an intriguer. The transparency of the pseudonym is now an asset—plainly Santa Cruz was making no effort at subterfuge. Philothea was merely to keep any worldly indignity from fastening upon the princes of the Church.

And so the full weight of their opprobrium attaches … to me.

By the time Antonia returns I am in a fury.

Santa Cruz and I have been friends for seventeen years. I simply cannot believe he came that day intending to do this. Then what has happened since? Something in the letter itself. He is obviously angry about the negative
finezas
. He cannot think I meant him—that the greatest
fineza
is receiving no favour at all. Does he think I am asking to be free of his favour, my obligations to him? Free of him? Could he not see that for once I was speaking my heart? Is he so unaccustomed to my sincerity in questions of theology that he could mistake it, think I was playing him for a fool? When I write of those who are ‘blind and envious' in my letter—does Santa Cruz not see in the humble Núñez, almost blind, a more likely target than himself? It is incredible. Can Santa Cruz be that dim, that proud, feel that unsure of my sentiments for him?

But then maybe this can yet be undone! A misunderstanding after all?

No. Yes. Quite incredible. No, not believable at all.

Morning. Through the east and south windows a brilliant morning light streams past me and over the floor on either side of the writing desk here in the corner. It is as if I am hiding from it now, this energetic clarity. For almost a full day I have explained nothing, and for the past twelve hours have refused to see the obvious. The obvious is quite terrible.

Our target was never Núñez. The target was Francisco Aguiar y Seijas. Archbishop of New Spain.

I have been answering the wrong questions. Yes, yes, it's clear why the pseudonym, even such a transparent one—but why a woman, why a
nun?
I had thought the irony directed at me. It is not. Archbishop Aguiar will see himself fairly surrounded now by nun theologians, Sor Juana and her followers. An attack of the Amazons, led by Athena herself. And everyone will see that he must see this. And he will know himself mocked for his hatred and his fear of us.

Sor Philothea is a fiction, a figment, a demon. Sor Juana is real. Mine is the only name that is real.

In my own letter so worthy of Athena I name neither Núñez nor Antonio Vieyra, nor even Santa Cruz. It is a letter, requested by a superior, on a certain sermon delivered by a certain predicator. I sign it only because anonymous documents send a dangerous signal to the Inquisition. But Sor Philothea in her preface—to
me—
names not just Vieyra but Vieyra's own teacher, his mentor: Meneses. Just to say my quill is cut finer than even his. Why?

Or might it just possibly be that Menenses is to Vieyra as Vieyra is to the Archbishop.

Philothea, seeing no one named, sees her opportunity: she makes it seem as if my letter strikes at the Archbishop himself. The last vestige of an unstated connection to Father Núñez is quite forgotten. There is only the Archbishop now. How is the reader to think otherwise? I would believe it myself. Then, admonishing me, Philothea sidesteps his wrath.

Sor Philothea is the matador, Sor Juana is the cape.

Seventeen years. Santa Cruz has been
a
friend
—to me, my nephew, my family. He gave my mother her
last rites
, took her confession, celebrated her funeral Mass. Have I been such a terrible friend?

This makes no sense. He sounds more and more like Núñez. He writes of the haughty elations of our sex, exhorts me to obedience, to sacrifice my will, to hold my mind captive.

I have done this thing out of obedience, put my mind at his service, done everything he asked. Then he turns on me that old shibboleth of Saint Paul, that a woman should not teach—yet even Saint Bernard admitted women might profit from study. I should really write more theology, Philothea says, even as she admonishes me in the preface to the theology I have just written. My lyrics to Saint Bernard
were
a
sermon
—and though such a thing is forbidden by the Council of Trent,
Santa Cruz was furious when Núñez forbade the singing of them on those grounds.

I have not answered it: what has happened since then?

I should read occasionally in the book of the Lord Jesus Christ? How cruel, how cruel is my sister Philothea. I should write more on sacred subjects, she chides, when I have written how many religious plays and sacred
loas
—even as I was writing for Santa Cruz a suite on Saint Catherine.

Now I am turning in circles. For even if Santa Cruz's target was always the Archbishop—why
publish?
The question is the same. A private letter directed at the Archbishop has almost every advantage. Unless the Archbishop is so close to madness—does Santa Cruz imagine His Grace might collapse before he takes action against me? Does Santa Cruz even care?

I see the face of my friend. Yet knowing what he has done I do not trust my memory of his face that day…. The eyes shine. A face like an adolescent's but slightly bloated by the intervening years. The boyish smile that stretches the sparse moustache across a row of teeth perfectly formed yet overlarge for the narrow mouth. The thin lips, the impish chin, the muscular jaws, all this might have rendered the face squirrel-like, were it not for the incongruous languor of the Bishop's voice and gestures. No. I would have it be incongruous but it is not. I have seen it many times before—his hand hovering over the confections of our convent, and it always seemed dear and comical, the way he attempts to resist his sweet tooth. Fairly torments himself before giving in. He thinks it is not noticeable. We think our notice is not noticeable….

There is a moment, something from that afternoon … But am I recalling it or planting it now, in the light of what has happened? The Bishop has just entered, the Viscount rises to greet him. Something comes into the Bishop's face. Even as it strikes me that the Viscount's beauty, for all his youth, is masculine, it crosses my mind that with the stickle of moustache shaved, and with it the little ridgeback of bristles that runs to the chin, Bishop Santa Cruz in a cowl could quite easily pass for one of us. Sor Philothea …