A Woman of Seville (13 page)

In the dance hall I find myself slow-skipping in time with an older woman who looks a lot like a giant cake. Her farthingale is enormous and she has a branch of cherries
decking her hair. I get her face powder all over my doublet. I’m on the lookout for Catarina again, and before long I catch sight of the Loyola sisters playing in the recesses. My assumption must be correct then. They are here to attend to the guests. To fan the musicians. Massage pinched toes. Scent burning or limp wrists.

I escape into the dining room and partake of the banquet. Then I return to the garden through the gate, retrace my steps and sit on the bench covered in petals. I wait. Glazed by the dampness of night I’m determined to bring on another episode with the girls, this time with the tables turned. Nothing happens. I
will
Catarina to appear. But she doesn’t. No-one comes.

Later I return to the house and wander down the corridors searching for Marius, intending to say goodbye. It’s not too early to leave and seem rude. Finding myself walking past Doña Fillide’s parlour, where earlier Marius showed me the painting, I hear voices and hesitate at the doorway.

Doña Fillide is standing with her back to
The Penitent Woman
, almost touching the canvas. She has placed herself directly in front of the spectre that Weddesteeg calls the human cavity, that dark amorphous shape that supposedly turns up in every painting when it’s nearing completion. Fillide Rosano, I notice, is the same size as the shadow;
she fills its dimensions. Indeed she would look good in the painting. It needs a figure to the left of Father Rastro and Paula. The horse, shielding the monk, is heavily prominent on the right.

I hear a sucking sound. There must be a señor in the room with Doña Fillide. Someone’s definitely smoking a pipe in there. Perhaps it’s Pacheco come to take a look, as I’d predicted. When Doña Fillide starts addressing the table I don’t hang around. I don’t want Pacheco to take me back to the dance hall with him. I hurry down the corridor and prepare to run up the stairs taking two or three steps at a time. Approaching the staircase I slow down when I notice a bundle lying on the bottom step. Not a drunk I hope. As I carefully step over the body, I recognise Catarina’s smallest sister. The body has the even breathing of someone asleep. Further up the stairs another fallen sister is blocking my path. This girl sits up when she hears footsteps.

‘Don’t,’ she says, half asleep.

‘Don’t what?’ I ask.

She still has a mask on. She lifts it and looks at me in confusion then puts it back in place and tries to go to sleep again. This girl has a cushion under her head and is dressed in a big soldier’s coat with red lapels.

‘I can’t get comfortable,’ she complains, wriggling about.

At the top of the stairs I expect to find another sister. This sleeping person has a blanket over her head so I can’t be sure it’s one of the girls, but I recognise the satin slippers. And shapely Loyola ankles. I’ve seen them, in numbers, frisking round the fishpond. She’s either fast asleep, or pretending.

I hesitate at the door of Marius’s chamber. There’s murmuring inside. The room has a single lantern but is mostly dark. Where are the voices coming from? I can’t see anyone in the room. I hear knocking, like wooden clogs, from within the cupboard. People must be inside. Odd sounds like what? Smooching. Long pauses. ‘Oh God!’ I recognise Marius’s voice enthusing. More laughter. Girlish tittering. ‘Damn!’ Marius again. A slap. Chuckling.

Go looking for love and you can only be humiliated. I go back to the landing. The girl formerly collapsed on the top stair is missing. She’s joined her sister on the middle stair. Her hand resting on a weary, slanting head. I’m surprised when she turns around. Catarina? But I don’t say her name.

‘Did you see Carlotta?’ she asks, her tone a little strident.

I stand over them, too flustered to reply. She slides on her backside down to the next stair and shifts over to let me pass.

‘One of your younger sisters?’ I force the words from my lips.

‘Carlotta’s older. By a year,’ states Catarina. But Catarina is the taller. And the meddler, I’m thinking. The one who wins saddles and blindfolds strangers.

‘She was meant to be keeping watch,’ Catarina complains.

‘Was she? Who was she looking out for?’

‘Keeping watch over us, silly.’

‘Oh,’ I say, staring at the place where Catarina’s curly brown wig has come askew from her sleek black hair. She sees me looking at her wet scalp and pulls the wig off, tossing it down the stairs.

‘Horrible, hot thing,’ she says, and I wonder why she put it on in the first place.

‘Did you see Marius Rosano up there?’ she asks me bluntly.

‘No, I didn’t.’ I answer with assurance, and quite honestly. So that’s why they’re sleeping out on the stairs—three young girls swooning over the handsome heir to the Rosano fortune.

I make it to the bottom of the staircase without tripping up and walk back along the corridor, heading for the dining room where the leftovers of the banquet are still on display. I’ll have another bite to eat before I head off home.

‘Hey, you! Señor,’ Catarina shouts. I turn. How could I not? Hanging on her every word.

‘What’s your name?’ she asks, and there’s a hint of a taunt in her tone.

If she doesn’t know my name then I’m not in the running. That rising lilt means I don’t stand a chance. It costs me to ignore her, but I have my pride to protect. I prefer to leave a part of myself behind, a part of my intended future, and walk away, walk on down the corridor of life, past Fillide Rosano who is still standing in front of the painting, this time not alone, but in the arms of Harmen Weddesteeg. I don’t stop to take a better look. The embrace of Harmen and Fillide may well have been an end-of-party illusion, I admit, as I was passing by rather quickly, but I continue to recall every detail of my first and only conversation with Catarina de Loyola, memorising forever the rising and dipping scale of her voice, the exact dimensions of her face, the little bit of dark fur above her lip, the eyes shrouded in coal and the beads of sweat on her forehead from the hot and heavy wig. And though I shelve any real expectation of a future with her from this night on, I continue to remember our brief conversation as one of those intense moments when I was on the
inside
of my experience, rather than being an outsider observing others as I feel myself to be most of the time. It didn’t end there,
where something ended, in the Rosano corridor. It didn’t end there because I was to think about her more often, for another year at least, until I made my wedding vows to Juana Pacheco.

I recognise him through a crack in the wooden door. Guido Rizi has pointed the tall Dominican out to me on a number of occasions, though we’ve never come close to being introduced. When I see Zamorana standing on my doorstep I can only assume he’s come to search for the Weddesteeg painting.

Harmen and two of Doña Fillide’s servants brought the big painting round here last night. Doña Fillide was tattering ribbons about it, thinking it was going to be stolen by Zamorana. Harmen was in high spirits, and I didn’t get the impression he put much faith in Doña Fillide’s fears.
‘No-one would think to look for it here. You’ve never met Doña Fillide, have you?’

No, I haven’t, but I’m not hiding the censored painting in my house. I don’t want to end up in the Castle of the Inquisition, I told him. The screams from that place carry across Triana some days. Harmen argued that I owed him a favour. Had I forgotten the sleepover in the Alcázar palace? Harmen was pretty persuasive last night, and I stupidly gave in.

Of course things didn’t work out as Harmen presumed they would. I was taking my breakfast when a messenger arrived at the door. I opened his scroll to find five simple words on the page, with a little picture story to help me understand. Thanks a lot Harmen. The monk’s copy of the painting that was put in the real one’s place has indeed vanished from the Casa de Rosano overnight. No-one knows who stole it, but Doña Fillide suspects it was Zamorana, as presaged in a dream she had. I put Harmen’s scroll in the fire and sat down to think. But I didn’t have long to do so because, horror of horrors, here is the thief, hot on the genuine painting’s trail. Obviously Zamorana wasn’t fooled by the fake. No-one should underestimate this man.

I know I’ll have to open my front door to him. And I
do
open it, and there he is, grim beanstalk in an ivory skullcap. He reminds me of a greyhound with his long thin nose.
Tickle him under the arms and he won’t laugh or belch as Guido Rizi does. I shouldn’t even bother trying. These are not the ones for touching. An
inquisitive
Inquisitor? That’s where the name comes from, doesn’t it? But he’s in some difficulty. Unsteady on his feet, eyes bloodshot. I wonder for a moment if the prelate has been attacked on the street. I’m about to reach out and help him when he collapses onto my doormat and chews on the hem of my gown.

It’s a kiss, I realise. He’s a skirt kisser. Well I can handle that. A skirt kiss means I’m in the winning seat. But this isn’t farce, is it? Am I being mocked? As Zamorana rises from his genuflection, I hold out my hand politely and invite him inside. A trickle of sweat runs down my arm. I wipe it on my dress. I shall refuse to let him search upstairs, I tell myself. I shall say that Bishop Rizi is retiring in my chamber. That he’s stark naked. (If nothing else scares Zamorana away the prospect of seeing Rizi nude will.)

But he doesn’t want to come inside. His face is so close I can smell his cidery breath. He’s drunk, not wounded. He’s too inebriated to speak coherently but it sounds like he’s asking me for a glass of water. He mumbles something apologetically about taking ill on his way to the Castle.

My maid, at my request, brings him a jug of water and a plate of olives. He drinks the water like a man come out of the desert. He looks at me in fascination, then looks away.
He eats quickly and hungrily. Looks at me, looks away. He’s swallowing so quickly he has a coughing fit. ‘Violeta, fetch more water.’ She returns and waits with me at the door and together we watch him drink. Funny how Violeta knows to do this, to wait, to lend me support. Zamorana’s avoided making any formal introductions. If he doesn’t ask, then he won’t have to acknowledge that he knows who I am. Well, he must know I’ve a pretty good idea how important
he
is, in his purple silk and all.

I don’t invite him in again. His evident weakness has given me strength. He asks for directions back to the bridge. ‘His Grace,’ I tell Violeta, ‘needs assistance returning to the river.’ Will she go with him? The pair depart, my maid walking a few yards in front of the eminent priest for propriety’s sake.

I close the door and stand with my back pressing against it. I can’t work out why Zamorana didn’t come inside to look for the painting. As there’s been no sign of surveillance, he may not have come for this particular reason. When Violeta returns, I send her off again, this time to inform Harmen about Zamorana’s visit. Harmen turns up later in the day, as startled as I am. He puffs on his pipe, thinks about it for a while, then suggests Zamorana may have wished to take a look at the woman who figured in the notorious painting, to size her up in the flesh, so to speak.

‘He’d just stolen the painting, so he was feeling excited about it, wasn’t he. Going down on his hands and knees, you say. Stinking of cider. He’s taken a fancy to you, Paula,’ Harmen snorts, but his insensitivity annoys me. I’m sickened by the thought of what Zamorana did to Aurelio, my ladder-man.

‘You know the song they sing about Zamorana in the Court of Elms, Harmen? You’ve only been in Seville a year, so you probably don’t. This is how it goes. “Zamorana, man of steel, condemns to die one dozen men; blows his nose, clips his nails, polishes his shoes, for the auto-da-fé is about to begin. Zamorana blows his nose, clips his nails, for one dozen men are about to die.’”

I tell Harmen I don’t want to keep the painting in my house as it’s placing me at risk. Harmen accepts this is true. He even apologises. Doña Fillide will send a coach to collect it tomorrow, he promises, and she will take it directly to her country villa. I shouldn’t worry for now. This appeases me a little.

Suddenly I remember. ‘What about the monk whose copy has been stolen? Has he been told yet?’

Harmen smiles. ‘The sacrifice will have been worth it. Victor María is to become my apprentice.’

‘The Mercedarians will let him leave their Order?’ I ask, not really understanding why this thought pleases me.

‘As my vassal, yes. I’m hoping.’

When Harmen leaves, I go upstairs to check on the painting. I remove the covers and take another look. I sit on my bed and contemplate the images of myself and Enrique Rastro. Yes, this is certainly the original. It’s breathtaking. Sensual. Perfect. I admit to taking pleasure in my beauty, but only because Enrique would have taken pleasure in it. I’m interested in him primarily, in my connection to him. Looking at the painting I become wistful about those hot afternoons when I found myself kneeling in front of him. Why does the memory of this intimacy mean so much more than it did at the time? I remember Enrique’s sweet respectful smile as he helped me transfer my weight from my knees to my feet before rising. How I would rock back and forth in a squatting position to get my circulation going. He would hold my arm lightly, almost
not
holding it, as we wandered around the studio. ‘He touches me, he touches me not.’ The monk would be walking the horse in a small half-circle, very close by. Sometimes my free arm would brush against the horse’s silky flank. A horsetail would swish against my thigh. The tension in my neck and the numbness of my knees would subside.

With the painting in my possession, I remember again what Enrique looks like. Those round, ruddy cheeks. Those kind, watery-brown eyes. Yes, Harmen has captured him
accurately. He isn’t handsome but neither is he plain nor really old. I move up close to the painting. My fingers reach out and I trace the coil of rope around Enrique’s lower waist. His chalk cassock is flecked with hay-dust. I stroke his ample midriff. He isn’t fat, but firmly rounded. Harmen has made him look barn-weary and bed-shy, but it’s true that Enrique sometimes
does
look like this. Or he used to.

Pressing the back of my hand against his painted cheek I feel the cool pigment on the canvas, almost skin-like. I imagine his warm cheek and his real mouth, full of blood, pressing against my own. I drop down onto my knees and kiss the thin, colourless lips as best I can. Rastro is kneeling side-on in the painting, so I only have access to half of his body. To half of his mouth.

‘And this is what it’s like to kiss you,’ I say to myself, with the confidence of one whose intended lover is not present to contest the embrace. ‘And if I kiss you for long enough, I will bring you to life, here in my sewing room, Enrique Rastro.’

Savouring happy outcomes to my present dilemma I imagine I haven’t been rejected after all. I’ll see him when he returns from Castile. Perhaps he might even consider breaking his vows with me, no longer a penitent in Purgatory, but merely a woman of Seville, like hundreds of others.

When I’m done making love to the painting, I retrieve my red Magdalen gown from the closet and lay it flat across my bed. Consider it as a seamstress might. Would it be worth mending the cuffs and seams where the fabric has thinned? The rest of the velvet is in prime condition, though I doubt there’ll be an opportunity to wear it again in public. But I could wear it around the house; wear it with nothing underneath, luxuriate inside a velvet glove. Perhaps I could even cut it down the middle and turn it into a dressing gown?

It’s siesta in Seville and from the top end of town to the bottom, residents have taken to their beds, or are considering doing so. I lie down alongside my dress and tuck a portion of the fabric—where it’s still thick—under my cheek. If my heart is no longer measuring time with that of another, it filled up on love during those precious six months in the convento and it’ll be keeping me warm for a while yet. I haven’t even accepted that my time in the convento is over. I continue to follow instructions, to hear the murmur of men’s voices, Harmen and Enrique conversing about the second book of
Don Quixote
, newly in print, which they say is much better than the first. Harmen doing most of the talking, Enrique deferring to the artist, weighing up each reply. I do what Harmen tells me to do, my arms reach out and I grip the base of the wooden Cross ‘passionately’
as though my life depends on it. I’m putting that Cross to better use than Harmen or Enrique or the red cardinals in Saint Peter’s would ever allow. And this is where my dreaming takes me:

‘I’m lying across the short beam of the Cross, believing myself to be the short part of the Cross. And Enrique is lying across the long beam of the Cross, believing himself to be the long part of the Cross. First he’s lying on his back, then he’s lying face down, though we’re always pointing in different directions. I’ve had plenty of time to imagine all the criss-cross possibilities with him and me in different positions along the beams of that Cross. Sometimes on the Cross, sometimes off the Cross. Making diagonal star patterns, with the Cross under our buttocks, lifting our bellies up.

‘Either way we join at the middle. Enrique and I. Him on the long arm and me on the short arm, the most conventional way. The short arm is exactly my body length and the long arm is just right for Enrique, with a little extra if he wants to stretch his arms up over his head. Me on my back, him on his front. Belly to belly. This is one for paradise. The long arm and the short arm. Enrique and I. Pinioned to the Cross for pleasure alone.

‘Enrique and I are on the Cross and we’re going to be lifted up. Yes, we are. A column of angels in wispy
white gowns is going to float down and pick us up. Here they come. Soft landings, a gentle whinnying. They flap their cartilage wings and carry us away as we cling to the Cross. (Perhaps our hands are bound to the beams to stop us falling off.)

There are no nails or pins in Limbo. There is no Heaven or Hell, just children and unbaptised souls, and lambs who were born upside down and stayed that way. And now for the first time to Limbo, here come a pair of impossibles like Father Rastro and me. We who have made a game of waiting and kneeling before the big mast of the Cross, as we’re doing just now, waiting and not minding waiting.

‘I can’t see Enrique because he’s kneeling behind me, but I can feel the pressure of the damp cloth he’s holding against my feet. My bare, dirty feet. I have to soil them in front of him beforehand. He’s always about to clean my feet, but he never actually does clean them. I wouldn’t let him do that anyway. I wipe them myself before I go home. But he’s always
on the point
of cleaning my feet and I’m always
about
to have my feet cleaned by him. And my face has to express an eagerness for absolution with just a tinge of rapture. ‘Not only my feet, but my hands and head and my whole body as well.’ So saith Simon Peter.

‘Enrique and I, joined at the navel. He the long arm and I the short arm. We’re holding onto the smooth wooden
beams rather than to each other, but his midriff is pressing against mine, and that is a nice place for us to meet. His torso and my torso, transversing around the navel.

I could tell you about a more important place to touch. I could, but it’s not what you might think. And so while I’m waiting I’m dreaming that I’m lying across the short beam of the Cross, believing myself to be the short part of the Cross, and Enrique is lying across the long beam of the Cross, believing himself to be the long arm and the righteous hand of God. Which he sometimes is, it’s quite true, when he’s being the Mercedarian leader. And this is how we pass the Holy hours, on our knees, my only significant passage of time, with him.’