11

IN SEGOVIA AT THAT TIME THERE WAS A PLAZA CALLED El Plaza de Fé which meant that it was the place of the Auto de Fé. The Auto de Fé is the act of faith and the act of faith is the burning alive of a human being for heresy. Even so long ago in Segovia people had forgotten who performs the act of faith, he who is burned or he who does the burning. In any case this plaza on the edge of the city aroused mixed feelings in all who passed by it; and there were times after an act of faith had been performed when the stench of burning flesh lay about it so awfully that only those with the strongest stomachs could venture into the place.

On this night however when Torquemada walked past the place of the act of faith and paused there for a little while, the air was sweet and clean. There had been no burning for heresy in eleven days. The raised platform of stone, which was called the pedestal of faith was swept clean and around the heavy, fire-blackened stake that rose out of it there were no ominous bundles of faggots. Instead a monk stood upon the stone platform with a scroll of parchment in his hands. Behind him stood a soldier of the Inquisition holding a pitch torch and giving him light to read. About thirty or forty people had gathered around to listen. For the most part, as Torquemada observed, they were beggars and sweepers, prostitutes and cutpurses – and among them, in and out of their legs, a dozen ragged, half-naked children ran and shouted and played.

As the monk began to read, Torquemada paused to listen. He stood on the edge of the crowd, half hidden in the shadows.

“These are the signatures of the devil,” the monk read from the parchment scroll he held. His voice resonant and confident he cried out, “Open your eyes lest the sin be upon you, and by this shall ye know the Christian who is a Jew at heart, a Jew in secret, a Jew by night and in the darkness. By these things he will be recognized. Now heed me well. First of all if he celebrates the Sabbath, if he wears a clean shirt or better garments, if he spreads a clean cloth upon his table or lights no fire during that day or rests on that day, you will know him, and as God knows you so will you denounce him and call down the fires of wrath upon him—”

With the last of this the monk’s voice rose to a high pitch. The crowd joined in screaming, hooting and clapping their hands. “God be praised!” someone in the crowd shouted. Others joined in. The children cupped their hands about their mouths and screamed with delight.

Finally the monk gave his parchment to the soldier to hold and spread his arms for silence. When it came he read from the parchment again.

“And by this too you will recognize him – if he eats meat during Lent, if he takes neither meat nor drink on the Day of Atonement – if he celebrates the Passover—” Now the monk interpolated. “Ah now there is opportunity for you. Always on the Passover the opportunity is greater. On the day of the Passover you watch him, you follow him, you notice him. Tempt him, offer him bread and see whether he puts the bread in his mouth. See whether he will touch the bread. Press the bread into his hand and see whether he drops it the way you would drop a hot coal. That way, cunningly, you will trap him and clothe your own immortal souls in specific grace—”

Torquemada walked away with long steps. He shivered a little and tried to throw off the great despondency that was gathering about him. He walked through street after street in Segovia, looking for a place he thought he remembered, and when he could not find it he called out to a boy. The child turned to run away, and Torquemada’s voice lashed at him and caught him like a noose of cord.

“Boy – come here!” Trapped, enmeshed, the boy hesitated. Then he walked slowly to the grim towering figure of the Prior and stood in front of him waiting and silent.

“Boy, where is the house of the Rabbi Mendoza?” Torquemada asked.

The boy shook his head silently.

“Do you know who I am, boy?”

Still silent the boy nodded.

“Then do as I say and take me to the house.”

Now the boy walked in front of Torquemada. The Prior followed and presently they came to a doorway in a wall, at which the boy pointed. Then the boy fled and Torquemada rapped sharply upon the door. He stood there waiting. A long time seemed to pass, so long that Torquemada began to wonder whether or not the boy had led him to an empty house. Then the door opened slowly, and a middle-aged woman stood in the doorway – a small plain-looking woman who regarded Torquemada without alarm but also without welcome.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Prior Thomas de Torquemada.”

“I know the name,” the woman said, nodding slowly. “What do you want here, Prior?”

“To speak with the rabbi.”

“We are Jews, Prior. Not Maranos – not converts or apostates or heretics. Only Jews. You have no business with us. Your Inquisition has no jurisdiction over Jews.”

“Will you teach me the Law of the Church?” Torquemada demanded in sudden anger; and then catching himself, said more gently, “Still, I must talk with the rabbi.”

For a moment longer the woman hesitated, observing Torquemada thoughtfully. Then she opened the door wide and stood aside, and Torquemada entered. She closed the door behind him. The hallway in which Torquemada stood was lit only by the light from the next room. In the pervasive darkness Torquemada stood and waited. “Follow me, please,” Señora Mendoza said to him. She led him then into a plain room, which was about nine by fourteen feet. There was a small hearth at one side, a tile floor, plaster walls and windows on the inside wall which, Torquemada knew, would overlook whatever tiny courtyard they possessed. The furnishings consisted of a table, some chairs and a cupboard.

The table was set for supper for the rabbi and his wife. There were two plates, a bread, some cheese and olives and onions; and as Torquemada entered the room, the rabbi who was seated at the far end of the table rose and faced him. Silently the rabbi waited, until Torquemada asked impatiently.

“Don’t you recognize me, Rabbi Mendoza?” Torquemada threw back his cowl.

“I know you, Prior,” Mendoza said.

“As you know Don Alvero de Rafel.”

To this Mendoza made no response by any sign or gesture. He simply stood at the end of the table, watching Torquemada.

“I say that you know him,” Torquemada insisted.

Now Mendoza pushed the chair away and walked around the table to face the Prior. “Why do you confront me with these things?” he asked Torquemada, his voice almost desperate in its enticement of reason. “If I say that I know him – what then? You will send your soldiers to seize him. You will bring him to what you call a trial in the room of the Inquisition. You will accuse him and he will deny the accusations. Then you will take him into that hellhole which you call the room of faith and you will torture him until his mind and his spirit break—”

Flatly and without apparent emotion Torquemada replied, “All that has been done, Rabbi. Now he lies in a cell of the Inquisition.”

Shaking her head, Señora Mendoza sat down in a chair. The rabbi closed his eyes for a moment, his face full of pain. Then he controlled himself and asked softly and carefully, “What are you, Prior Torquemada? Our sages say that we are put upon this earth to comport ourselves in terms of our fellow man. All my life I have tried to understand men like you. Where even the cruellest or the dullest peon feeds on meat and bread, you feast on suffering.”

“Feast? Oh no, Rabbi. There is no feast when you feel every twinge of pain in yourself.”

“Do you, sir?” Mendoza asked. “And when you stand face to face with the Almighty, will you dare to explain the torture and death you have inflicted on so many by claiming that you felt their pain? Is this the sophistry that you render your God? Really, Prior, this kind of thinking is less than worthy of you. What do you know of pain, Prior?”

“I serve my God as he commands me, and I did not come here to argue theology with a Jew.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Because Alvero de Rafel pleaded with me to bring you to him—”

“And out of human kindness you agreed? Is that what you are trying to tell me? Am I a child? Am I a fool? Do you expect me to believe this incredible nonsense?”

“Are you God that I must explain myself?” Torquemada exclaimed. “For twenty years Alvero de Rafel was my friend.”

“And out of the love you bore him, you arrested him and put him on the rack of torture – and presently you will tie him to that cursed stake in your place of faith and as further proof of the love in which you hold him, you will burn him and smell the stink of his burning flesh—”

“For his soul’s salvation!” Torquemada cried.

Mendoza shook his head, turned away and walked across the room to where his wife sat. He put his hand upon her shoulder, sighed and said to Torquemada, “The thing we do most poorly is to hate. God help me, I pity you, Prior. All right, take me to him.”

Now suddenly his wife rose and placed herself in front of him. “No!” she said. “No! I don’t want you to go with him!”

“Don Alvero asked for me and I must go to him,” Rabbi Mendoza explained.

“Not to the Inquisition,” his wife begged. She turned to Torquemada, pointing a trembling hand at him. “Look at him. You know who he is and what he is.”

“No, my dear,” Mendoza told her patiently. “I don’t know who he is or what he is. If only I knew that, I would have some peace. Even in this hellish nightmare-time that has fallen upon Spain I would have some peace. But I don’t know who he is. I don’t know what he is. May God forgive me, I don’t know why he is. Nevertheless I must go with him.”

The rabbi put his wife aside gently and went to the door. Torquemada followed him.

They walked together through the streets of the town, side by side. A moon was rising and there was light enough for them to see their way. For a time they walked in silence and then Mendoza asked Torquemada whether or not he felt fear when he walked alone in the night with a rabbi and a Jew. The question contained a note of sad mockery. Yet Torquemada took the words upon their face value and replied firmly.

“I fear only God.”

“Yet people see us,” Mendoza continued. “Even in the darkness they will recognize you and they will recognize me. Suppose one of them should whisper to another – Torquemada Judaizes? Suppose the whisper took wings as whispers do—”

“Only the devil would say that,” Torquemada replied.

Mendoza nodded. “Yes, the devil. What a burden he bears! And tell me this, Prior. If one should remember that only a century ago there was a good and pious rabbi in Barcelona whose name was Torquemada? The devil remembers everything, does he not, Prior?”

“You dare too much, Jew!” Torquemada said angrily.

“We all dare too much, Prior,” Mendoza agreed. “It is the penalty for existence. However, we Jews do not put the same trust in the act of confession that you do. Therefore I do hot ask you to confess yourself.”

“Ask me nothing, Jew! And keep quiet! I have no need of your talk.”

“As you will.” Mendoza shrugged. “My talk is witless and far from entertaining, and as for Torquemada, well, let me tell you, Prior, there are a thousand men in Spain who have that name. It is a very common name. So you see that my cunning is rather childlike and entirely wasted.”