Torquemada (6 page)

“You were listening,” Maria said.

“I heard you from outside.”

“You were listening,” Maria said. “How could you? How could you stand out there and listen?”

“Is that all you can think about, that I listened to you?”

For a long moment Maria stared at her husband. Then she turned and walked the length of the gallery to the door where her daughter stood, walked past her and out. Catherine came into the room. She was crying now. She came a few more paces into the room and stood there. The old servant, Julio, came over and touched Alvero's velvet doublet.

“I am an old man,” Julio said, “and I would rather die, Don Alvero, than to have you look at me the way you look at me.”

“I trust you,” Alvero whispered hoarsely.

“Say that in truth,” Julio said, “or I will walk out to the stable and put a knife in my belly.”

“In truth,” Alvero whispered.

During this, Catherine had walked firmly to the table where a carafe of wine and glasses stood. She poured a glass of wine and, with great deliberation, her face set and intent, brought it to Mendoza and held out the glass to him. When, at first, he made no movement to accept it, Catherine said,

“Drink the wine of our household, Don Mendoza.”

Alvero watched them. Mendoza took the wine and Catherine drew a chair from the table, nodding for him to sit down.

“Shall I drink alone?” Mendoza asked.

“Pour me a glass,” Alvero told his daughter and then he said to Julio, “Bring us bread, Julio.”

“The wine is enough,” Mendoza said.

“It is my house,” Alvero said almost bitterly. “If you drink wine here, you will break bread with me.” Alvero went over to his daughter, kissed her and whispered for her to leave. She nodded and went out of the room. Like two men in a tableau, Mendoza and Alvero stood silently, holding their wine glasses until Julio returned with the bread. Then Alvero broke the bread and offered some to the Jew, who chewed it thoughtfully as if he savoured the taste of it.

“Please sit down,” Alvero said to the rabbi.

Mendoza seated himself at the table and Alvero sat down facing him. Mendoza then spoke of Alvero's daughter. It seemed to Alvero that he quoted or paraphrased some words from the Bible but Alvero was not sure. He did not know the Bible very well. “You are blessed,” Mendoza said, “you have a remarkable daughter.”

“I suppose that is true, but remember that a blessing can be a curse. I love my daughter more than anything on earth.”

“Love is never a curse.”

Julio, who had stood there until now, suddenly turned and walked out of the room, and Mendoza said to Alvero,

“The man loves you. Why are you afraid of him, Don Alvero?”

“We are in Spain, Rabbi. Therefore we must learn to live with fear.”

“There you have a curious proposition indeed, Don Alvero, for all Spaniards are not Jews.”

“I don't understand you.”

“I mean that the art of living with fear is a peculiarly Jewish art. Nevertheless, one must not be afraid. If you live with fear and you are afraid, then you are right, Don Alvero – love will become a curse, but you can live with fear and be without fear, and then any love is a blessing. Why am I talking like this? I did not come here to discuss philosophy with you. In fact, I am sorry that I came here. It was the thoughtlessness and the greed of desperation that drove me here.”

“I have nothing to forgive you for,” Alvero said.

“Not even for saving my life?” Mendoza asked.

“Must I forgive you for that? I don't understand you. You were in danger and I did for you what I would do for any human being. It is not deserving of gratitude, nor is it worthy of discussion. It is a small thing.”

“Not for me,” Mendoza said softly.

“No, I did not mean that, no. Now you must forgive me.”

“You are a strange man, Don Alvero, but it may be that all Spanish dons are very strange men. You, all of you, share a courtliness and a grace which is like a benediction. I think that is why it hurts so much when I see you afraid.”

“Then I tell you that I am not afraid. God help me, I cringe in fear because a Jew enters my house! Are you a man of God, Rabbi?”

“You have your own men of God, Don Alvero.”

“Then you offer me no comfort.”

“I guess not,” Mendoza agreed. “I came here to find comfort and not to bring comfort and I think for that I am sorry – and, if I have your leave, I will go and ask no further favours from you.”

“What favours, Rabbi? What can I do for you?”

“You have done enough for me. Does it makes you forever my debtor because you helped me once?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then I have endangered you enough, simply by coming here, and thus all debts are paid,” Mendoza said.

“Why did you come here?”

“Must I tell you?”

“I think so.” Alvero nodded. “I sleep poorly as it is. Shall I sleep less poorly?”

“Very well,” the Jew said, “you are a friend of Torquemada.”

“How do you know that?” Alvero asked. “Because I was with him?”

“All of Segovia has known it for years.”

“Then I am his friend.” Alvero shrugged. “He is human, he feels, he suffers and he too sleeps poorly – whether or not you believe that.”

“I believe it.”

“He is a man and he needs friends. You are right, we have been friends many years.”

“Then you know that he has decided to destroy our synagogue – to burn it to the ground.”

“No! That is nonsense. Why should he?”

“Aren't there reasons enough, Don Alvero? Couldn't you itemize them, Don Alvero? He hates Jews. All right, you will reply to me that many people hate Jews. But he is also the Grand Inquisitor now – the head of the Holy Inquisition in all of Spain.”

“That gives him no right to act against Jews,” Alvero said, “or to destroy the synagogue. You know that. The Inquisition can take action against heretics, backsliders, blasphemers, but not against Jews.”

“Rights, wrongs, you have a desperate need to think legalistically, haven't you, Don Alvero? But it is power that counts. He talks, he preaches. He calls for a punishment upon a pestilence. He is a righteous man, your Torquemada, and out of his righteousness he states what God wills. That is the curse of all righteous men. They talk with God's voice and Torquemada convinces too many people that it is God's will that the synagogue be burned to the ground.”

Alvero stared at Mendoza – regarded him morosely and uneasily but said nothing. Mendoza sat for a little while, and then began to rise, asking Alvero, “Shall I leave you, Don Alvero?”

“Only if you wish.” Alvero shrugged.

Mendoza was standing now. He shook his head and appeared to shiver. He stood there in silence for a moment or two and then he said to Alvero, “If you feel that on my part I should be aware of how small a thing a building is, compared to a human life, then I suppose you are right. I invest my synagogue with qualities it does not have. It is a very old synagogue, and we tend to confuse that with holiness, so we say that it is a holy place, a place that God remembers. It has stood here in Segovia for two thousand years. The Carthaginians built it. There were a great many Jews among the Carthaginians. Many reputable scholars believe that the Hamilcar family was Jewish and I once saw an old shred of parchment which said things that proved, in effect, that Hannibal himself had worshipped in our sanctuary. There is an inscription in the stone which says, in the old Aramaic, ‘Here sacrificed Hannibal to the God of his fathers, to the God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob', but you never know whether such inscriptions are true or simply the result of legends that build up until someone believes them and feels that they must be inscribed in stone—”

Alvero rose now, facing the rabbi, and, speaking hoarsely, argued that a synagogue was a building, no more and no less. “Houses are built and houses are destroyed!” Alvero cried.

“I know, I know.”

“The devil you do!” Alvero shouted. “I can't help you. Do you understand that? I don't think you understand what you are asking me. Do you know what you are asking me? Do you actually know what you are asking me to do?”

“Yes, I know,” whispered the rabbi.

“Why did you come to me? Why me, out of the whole city? Suppose we talk to each other frankly and forth-rightly. I have done business with Jews. There isn't a merchant in Spain who hasn't and I know how your people work. You buy and you sell and you bribe. You have bribed the City Council of Segovia a hundred times. You have bribed the priests. You have bribed bishops. Why come to me? Take up a collection of the money you need and your synagogue will stand. But why come to me? Why pick me out of all Segovia? Because I saved your life?”

“No, not because you saved my life.”

“Of course because I saved your life. This makes me your slave, doesn't it? Your willing servant. Unwittingly and unknowingly I saved the life of one Jew – and now I must save the lives of a thousand Jews or of a synagogue or of anything else your fancy directs you to—”

“Only give me leave to go, Don Alvero,” the rabbi begged him.

Alvero grabbed the rabbi's arm and swung him around to face him. Close to him, Alvero said, “Why me? Out of all Segovia, why me? Not because I saved your life. There is another reason.”

“Must you have another reason?”

“I must,” Alvero whispered.

“Very well, then” – Mendoza nodded, his voice soft, so soft that Alvero had to strain towards him to hear it – “I will give you the reason. In Barcelona I knew your father. I knew who he was and what he was. I loved him and I trusted him and I said that what he was must live on in his son.”

6

AFTER MENDOZA LEFT
,
ALVERO CHANGED HIS CLOTHES
, put on riding boots and his sword, and sent word to the stables for his horse to be saddled. As he came down from his room, having seen nothing of his wife, Maria, since Mendoza's departure, he found Catherine waiting for him. She asked where he was going and he parried her questions. She took his arm and walked with him and Alvero said to her.

“You grow more beautiful each day.”

“And you become more handsome each day,” she countered. “Shall we go on praising each other? I would rather we didn't have to. It hurts when you quarrel with my mother.”

“We had no quarrel,” Alvero said, shortly.

“Why does she hate Jews?” Catherine wanted to know.

“Many people hate Jews.”

“I don't hate them. Are they so very evil?”

“Like all people” – Alvero shrugged – “some are good and some are bad.”

“And this man, this rabbi, Mendoza, that was his name, wasn't it? Tell me, is he good or bad?”

“Do you want me to judge men? I saw him once on the road when I helped him and again today at the house. We spoke for a little while together. That is not long enough to know whether a man is good or bad. A lifetime is not long enough to know that.”

“What is a rabbi? Is he a priest?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly? Don't you know what a rabbi is?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then why won't you tell me?”

“I am not trying to conceal things from you. I suppose he is like a priest or like a teacher, something of that sort—” He turned, almost abruptly, from his daughter and strode over to where Julio held the reins of his horse. As Alvero mounted, Catherine went to him. “I'll be back this evening,” he said. She stood there, staring at him.

“What are you looking at?” Alvero demanded.

Catherine smiled suddenly. “You are a very handsome man, Don Alvero. Now why didn't that ever occur to me before? You are old but very handsome.”

Alvero reared his horse around and spurred it away. He rode toward the outskirts of the town at a hard gallop, conscious that his daughter was watching him; but when he was out of sight of the house, he slowed the horse to a trot and then to a walk. Van Sitten, from whom he had parted some hours before, must have stopped at an inn in Segovia, because now Alvero saw him riding up ahead in the distance and he shouted to him and spurred his horse. Van Sitten reined up, recognized Alvero and waited until Alvero joined him. On the edge of town now, the road ran through an alleyway of old olive trees. In the distance peasants were working in the fields under the afternoon sun and there was a clear, steel-blue sky overhead. Van Sitten mopped his brow and said to Alvero.

“You know we dream of the sunshine, we Hollanders, but I think that after a few days in Spain, one has enough of it. God, it's hot! It doesn't seem to affect you at all.”

“One gets used to it,” Alvero replied. “Where are you off to now, good friend?”

“France and then home.”

“I noticed before,” Alvero said, “that you arc in a hurry to leave Spain.”