By Fire, By Water (12 page)

Upstairs, Gabriel half-heartedly played hide-and-seek with Felipe’s children. Midway through their game, he found himself in Felipe’s woodworking studio. In the trembling brown light of his small candle, the faces of incomplete seraphim and cherubim scowled, leered, and glared. Certainly a frightening place, but like most frightening places, also magical.

At the rear of the room, Gabriel discovered a closet with a key in its door, full of trinkets and books. He crept inside.

He saw volumes in Latin, a silver cross dangling on a chain, rosaries made of gold and rubies. Tucked behind them, other books, with strange writing on their spines. Scattered on the shelves, brass stars, silver hands and eyes, candelabras. An oval wooden spice box, adorned with miniature carved lions. Gabriel gazed at these anomalous objects, disturbed and transfixed. The giggle of Felipe’s daughter broke the spell.

“I’m going to find you! I know you’re here.”

Breathing audibly, Gabriel reached out and took hold of a small, silver
hamsa
hand. An amulet, terrifying and beguiling, in the shape of a flat upturned palm, with a lapis eye in its center. He wondered, was this the work of the devil? Of an angel? He felt an icy coldness.

“I can
smell
you,” said Felipe’s daughter, just outside. She giggled again.

Gabriel could not remain in this place, holding this strange object. He knew he should put it back.

He had heard of amulets that could make a man wealthy, a field fertile, or a knight courageous. He did not know whether this was such a talisman, but he was sure it had special powers. There were so many strange objects in this room. He doubted anyone would notice, or care, if this one disappeared. He slipped it into the pocket of his jerkin.

“Here I am!” he announced, throwing open the door, wearing a smile to hide the turmoil in his heart.

“I got you!” The dimpled, blue-eyed little girl grabbed his arm and pushed the door closed behind him. Its lock made a small clicking sound as it fell into place.

As his father tucked him into bed that night, Gabriel asked, “What was that about, Papa? That … that gibberish before dinner, that book, those prayers. Was that … Are they …?”

“Just a tradition in their family.” Santángel stroked his son’s hair. “Señor de Almazón may come from a distant land, with different customs.”

“What if they’re heretics?”

“Who spoke to you of heresy?”

“Brother Pablo.” One of Gabriel’s tutors. “He said we’re all guards in the lookout tower of our faith.”

“And what are we watching for?”

“Secret prayers. Strange foods. Statues. Magical rings, necklaces, cups.” He frowned, remembering the
hamsa
hand he had pocketed, worried but also excited to possess such an object. “Were those people heretics, Father?”

Luis let out a forced laugh. “Felipe? He’s as Catholic as any of us. Now go to sleep.” Santángel kissed his son on the forehead.

Gabriel closed his eyes, shuddering inwardly. His father seemed not to take his concerns seriously. He found something troubling, frightening, dishonest in that dismissive chuckle. After Luis left his bedroom, Gabriel silently uttered a prayer. Having been raised as much by his seminarian tutors as by his father, having absorbed more of their conviction than of his father’s confusion, Gabriel prayed as he had never prayed before. He asked God whether contact with these unusual people and their frightful customs had tainted him or his father, and begged Him to cleanse their hearts if it had.

The Tenth Meeting

A
BRAM
S
ERERO BROUGHT
the leather envelope that Cristóbal Colón had foisted upon Santángel. The chancellor was about to object, but Serero stopped him. “Please, Chancellor. There’s no cause for concern.” This confused Santángel, but he allowed Serero to continue.

The scribe addressed Father Cáceres. “You wanted to see texts that discuss the Messiah. Some of these texts do just that. Others deal with travel to places like the Garden of Eden and the Holy Land.”

Now the chancellor understood Colón’s interest in these documents. As Serero spread the leaves upon the table, Santángel leaned forward to steal another glimpse at the ancient, precious writings.

Serero described each document. The first was a commentary on Abraham’s passage from the city of Ur to the Holy Land. “But it wasn’t only a journey through those lands. This is the point.” Serero’s finger came to rest on one of the Hebrew phrases: “It was a journey of Abraham’s soul, from a state of unholiness toward a state of holiness.”

Cáceres, who had studied Hebrew, leaned over the text, his bald head reflecting the candle flame.

Serero showed them another. “This one … This concerns the journey of the Jews back to the Holy Land, after the coming of the Messiah.” And another: “This describes some of the conditions surrounding his coming.”

“What are those conditions?” asked Cáceres.

“Let me ask you something, Father,” returned Serero. “Why do we have rainbows?”

“To remind us of the Flood. Of God’s agreement with Noah. That He’ll never again destroy most of the life on earth.”

“Well, according to this text, when the Messiah comes, the rainbow will be fresh again, as fresh as a woman just married, entering the bridal chamber.” Serero smiled mischievously. “Of course, Father, that’s something you may not have had the good fortune to experience firsthand.”

The priest, usually so somber, responded to the jab with a chuckle.

“And on that day,” Serero concluded, “God’s promise to man will be renewed.”

Cáceres examined the text, stopping at one of the words. “What is this? Is this not
Roma?”

Serero looked where he was pointing. “So it is.”

“And the city of Rome will crumble,” Cáceres translated. Clearly, if his reading was correct, these words amounted to a warning, an evil slur against the Holy Church.

“That is what it is saying, Father,” admitted Serero, following his index.

“Rome will grow dissolute.” The priest’s voice dipped as he continued. “And will collapse.”

“It is happening,” observed Santángel, “in our day.”

“How so?” asked Cáceres, raising his eyes from the text.

“Graft, harlotry, illegal commerce. The usual signs of decay.”

“How do you know this?”

“I spent a month there. I saw enough.”

Cáceres read on: “There will be a war against the people of Israel. But in the end, they will be delivered.”

“Where will this Messiah come from?” asked Felipe.

“Some say his soul resides in the Garden of Eden,” said Serero.

“Where is that?” asked Santángel, again thinking of his conversation with Colón.

“If I knew where paradise was,” answered the scribe, “would I be sitting here with you?”

After Father Cáceres left, Santángel posed another question to the scribe. “But what of that other document? The rolled-up parchment, very ancient.” He remembered its letters floating in the air.

“Ah, yes.” Serero nodded slowly. “I’ve placed it elsewhere. For safe keeping.”

“What is it? What does it say?”

“That parchment would be better left alone.”

“The sailor who gave me these,” insisted Santángel, “urged me to report back to him. It wouldn’t be decent for me, or you, to hoard this knowledge.”

“The parchment.” Serero nodded, scratching his ear. “I knew of this document long before I had the privilege of setting my eyes on it. I was under the impression not one copy remained. Because of this text, many Jews have been massacred. The Christians searched out every copy and burned them in auto-da-fés, along with their owners.”

The Thirteenth Meeting

A
S
S
ERERO AND
C
ÁCERES ENTERED
Santángel’s study, Felipe set a pine box on the table. “I have spent many, many hours struggling with this.”

“What is it?” asked Santángel.

Felipe opened the box and removed a sculpture, about a foot high. Two men wrestling, mirror reflections of each other. Delicate curves of cherry wood formed their hair, mouths, hands, calves, feet. Their facial muscles and eyes conveyed not only intense concentration, but also awe, as if both figures were astonished to find themselves embracing in combat.

“Jacob wrestling with the angel.”

“Please put that away,” said Serero.

“Why?” asked the chancellor’s aide.

“It is a graven image.”

Felipe frowned. “But it doesn’t claim to be a representation of God.”

“I don’t want to see that. Please take it out of here.”

“You showed us a book, a Passover Haggadah, with people drinking, talking, eating. Were those graven images?”

“An illuminated Haggadah,” explained the scribe, “is not the same as a depiction of people and scenes from the Bible. I know how proud the Christians are of their statues. But I don’t have to look at them.”

“Why not?” asked Raimundo de Cáceres.

Felipe de Almazón slowly, deliberately replaced the statue in its box, then carried the box to another room.

“The Bible,” explained Serero, “is made of words. Words exist in the same realm as ideas. A physical form is another matter. Images and words affect the soul differently. The Muslims understand this. The Christians don’t.”

“I do,” said the priest. “And I am a Christian. You’re talking about Neoplatonism.”

“I am not talking about that,” said Serero, “whatever that means.”

Felipe de Almazón returned, but hardly said a word the rest of that evening. His lips tight, a small crease above his chin, he listened.

After the others left, Santángel again detained Serero. “Did you not say, life is more sacred than ritual? That if a life is at risk, a Jew should even violate the Sabbath?”

“Without a doubt,” replied Serero. “That is the principle of
pikuach nefesh.”

“I’m afraid that principle escapes Felipe.”

“His statue,” said the scribe, “is not a danger to anyone’s life. And Felipe is not a Jew.”

“I’m not speaking of the statue.”

The chancellor told Serero about the Sabbath invitation, the elaborate meal, Felipe’s clumsy attempt at Hebrew prayer. “I fear he believes that these meetings … that we’re trying to convert him.”

“We have been clear,” said Serero. “We’re discussing ideas. We’re not telling anyone what to believe or not to believe. That is our agreement.”

“But why this Sabbath invitation?”

“Felipe seems to …” Serero searched for the words. “He seems to cherish the secret. The common ground he shares with you. You’re like a father to him.”

“What common ground? Neither of us is a Jew. He doesn’t even understand the purpose of these rituals.”

“Chancellor, I agree. Señor de Almazón is not a Jew. But according to Jewish law, you
are
a Jew.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the chancellor irritably, ushering the scribe outside and locking the door.

Over the next few days, Felipe removed every unfinished angel from his workshop and every sculpture from his office. He placed them carefully in a pine box. On top, he nested Jacob and the angel. He buried this coffin in his courtyard, vowing to himself never again to make or even regard an image of holy beings. He would survive as well without their protection.