SPRING HAD COME, AND I WAS PLANTING HERBS IN THE GARDEN: PEPPERMINT, dill, coriander, parsley. All of a sudden I felt his eyes on me. My wrist trembled and the shoots I was holding tumbled out of my hand. I swiveled slightly and saw two worn boots and the hem of a habit. I didn’t have to look up to know it was Braulio.
“You,” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”
“No hello? No kiss?”
“I thought you were in the north. In Paris or Brussels.”
“I was in Paris, but I’ve been back for months.”
I put down my tools and stood up, but not too close to him. I felt like a doe cornered by a hunter. Instinctively, I glanced around for an escape route.
He clasped his hands together, as if to show he had no malevolent intentions. “I don’t want anything,” he said softly. He looked older, more subdued. His face was wan, his eyes, tired. “I just came here to warn you.”
“About what?”
“I was in Valladolid for the autos-da-fe. Everyone is talking about the santa of Ávila, even in Valladolid, five hundred leagues to the north. Your friend Teresa is going to get herself killed.” His voice was steady. He wasn’t making a threat, just conveying information.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The new king is a madman, and he’s out for her kind.”
Felipe II had ascended to the throne in 1556, inheriting Spain and the Low Countries from his father, Carlos. The old king had been born in Flanders and wasn’t so scandalized by the new ideas from the north. For him, confronting the Protestants was more a question of political expediency than of orthodoxy. His son, on the other hand, was reputedly a religious fanatic.
“She has protectors,” I said. “Powerful people like Doña Guiomar de Ulloa.”
“Look what happened to Carranza de Miranda, the queen’s confessor. King Felipe got it into his head that Carranza’s views were unorthodox and had the Inquisition arrest him.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re trying to intimidate me.”
“No, I’m trying to help you. I feel bad about … the things that happened.”
“About raping me?”
“Listen to me, Angélica. Teresa is in danger. Do you know who Constantino Ponce de la Fuente is … was? He was the court preacher. They discovered he was secretly a Lutheran, so they arrested him—barged into his house one night while he was playing chess with his wife. They threw him into a dungeon in the old Augustinian monastery. Now he’s dead. He committed suicide, hung himself with his own shirt.”
I cringed. “Why are you telling me these things? To see me squirm?”
“In Valladolid they found out that Lutherans were meeting at midnight at the home of Father Agustín Cazalla, a professor of theology from the University of Salamanca.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” I said nervously. My heart was beginning to pound.
“I saw him burn, Angélica. I heard his shrieks when the flames touched his flesh. The king was in attendance, and all the court gentlemen and ladies. The sweetest little girl was there—she was so blond and fair. A cherub, really, in a frilly, silk dress with lace cuffs. ‘When will they burn them, Papá?’ she kept saying. Her eyes glowed with excitement. A huge crowd gathered. Thousands of commoners. Whole families with children, all there for the entertainment. You know what they do, Angélica? First they singe the cheeks of the condemned, just to titillate the crowd. Then they set the torch to the hay around their feet.”
“But surely a woman …”
“Oh, being a woman won’t save Teresa. Don’t you know about the Jeronymite nuns from San Isidro Convent in Seville? People said they read the Bible, like Lutherans. The inquisitors decided they were contaminating not only other convents, but even the lay people.”
“Teresa isn’t a Lutheran.”
“Anything they don’t understand is Protestant, Angélica. It’s a word they use for whatever is strange and new. In King Felipe’s sick, depraved mind, anyone who thinks, reads, or feels is a heretic. I don’t have time to explain this to you now, Angélica. I just came to warn you. Your friend’s in danger. If you love her, tell her to lie low. She’s attracting too much attention.”
“But so far away, in Valladolid? It can’t be!”
“Have you ever seen an auto-da-fe, Angélica? They do it on Sunday, the holiest day of the week, so more people can attend. The prisoners march to the stakes in their yellow robes and pointed caps, tears rolling down their cheeks. I was close enough to see the veins bulging in their necks, the beads of sweat on their foreheads, the trembling hands. A priest walks on either side of each one, encouraging him to confess his sins, to save his soul. ‘Renounce your evil ways, my son,’ they say. ‘Recant, my daughter. Death will be less painful.’ If the victim accepts, the executioners do him the favor of strangling him before laying the torch on his body. If he doesn’t …”
“Stop, Braulio! Stop! You’re terrifying me!”
“I want to terrify you. I want you to see that this is no game, Angélica. The king has given the Inquisition orders to be fast, thorough, and severe. No more long, drawn out trials. He wants to clear Spain of heretics right now! And the conversos, Angélica, he hates them. He thinks they’re responsible for all Spain’s ills. Every misfortune that happens, he blames on the conversos. If the country is crawling with Lutherans, it’s their fault. If he’s suffering an attack of gout, it’s their fault. The man is obsessed. He doesn’t really know the difference between a Lutheran and a converso or between a converso and a porcupine. Although there’s some truth to what he says. The reform movements are attracting a lot of Jewish converts. Churches with no images, less pomp, less genuflecting … that sort of thing appeals to them. Anyway, tell Teresa to be careful. And you be careful, too. They’ll see you as an accomplice.” He sounded sincere. A strange thought came to me: In some sick way, he still cared about me. Otherwise, why would it matter to him that Teresa’s fame might put me in danger?
“The worst of the inquisitors is a man from here. That makes him doubly dangerous because he might know something about Teresa’s family. Javier Sánchez Colón. A Dominican.”
I trembled like a violet in a cold wind. Javier Sánchez Colón. Teresa’s handsome cousin Javier. Everything changes, I thought. Braulio is my protector. Basilio is a fat, bald cartwright. Javier—once so tender and sensitive—is a cruel inquisitor who oversees public executions.
“The Dominicans have taken a stand against everything your friend Teresa believes in,” Braulio went on. They think people who seek a personal relationship with God reject the sacraments. They think mental prayer leads to heresy. Melchor Cano is their leader, and Sánchez Colón studied with Cano. This Sánchez is a dangerous man, Angélica. Try to keep Doña Teresa out of his clutches.”
I dropped the rest of the coriander and began to wring my hands with such force that I nearly dislocated a thumb. I felt as though I had a wad of raw dough in my stomach. A hot, wet stream trickled down my leg. I locked my knees together, praying that my underskirts would absorb the urine. A wave of nausea came over me, and I had to struggle to steady myself. I locked gazes with Braulio in order to keep his eyes off the ground. What if he realized what had happened? What if I had left a puddle under my feet?
“Are you … are you back in Ávila for good?” I stammered.
“I’m leaving for Paris tonight. Goodbye, Angélica. God protect you.”
He turned and disappeared into the foliage. He knew every secret passage in the convent garden, every hiding place. They wouldn’t catch him. I gathered up my tools and darted back to my cell to change my wet underskirts.
I began to have nightmares about autos-da-fe, only instead of Cazalla or Ponce de la Fuente, it was Teresa who was being escorted to the stake, Álvarez on one side of her, Daza on the other. And lighting the torch, the Dominican Inquisitor Javier Sánchez Colón.
I didn’t say anything to Teresa about what Braulio had told me. The thought of starting a new convent had galvanized her, and I didn’t want to ruin her happiness. I hadn’t seen her so excited since she was a girl. Her idea was to create a real community of women. Not a dumping ground for girls who had no place else to go, but a small, dynamic beehive where sisters could pray and learn. It would be her way of fighting what plagued the faith—the apathy and empty ritualism, as well as the epidemic of skepticism fostered by the Lutherans. Her nuns would be fighters. She didn’t see prayer as passivity, but as a form of assertiveness. She would save the heretics by praying for them. Her brothers were battling pagans in the New World, and she would battle the church’s foes in the old. Men could be priests and soldiers, but women could be active, too. She’d known for years that God had a mission for her. Now she knew what it was. This would be her apostolate. Seeing her so fired up, how could I warn her to be cautious?
I don’t know how the rumors about the new convent began to spread, but they did. I heard people whispering at the grille and, when I went out to buy medicine, chattering in the plaza. Father Baltasar grew antsy. He was an inexperienced confessor, only twenty-seven years old, ordained just the year before. Juan de Prádanos, Teresa’s former confessor, had been young, too, but some people have a natural gift for spiritual direction. Father Baltasar was unsure of himself. Teresa’s reputation intimidated him. People were calling her a saint, but Salcedo was still demanding exorcism. Father Baltasar didn’t know what to do. He was afraid to take chances. He began to torture her.
“You’re a worm!” he screamed. “Yes, Father.” “Uncover your face! Look at me! You’re a piece of slime!” “Yes, Father.” “I’m saving you from yourself. Your soul is like a festering sore. You have to scoop out the rot.” “Yes, Father.” “This nonsense about a new convent has to stop!” Silence. She was convinced that God himself had demanded she move forward with her plan. There was no way she could give it up.
Álvarez knew that if the Inquisition set Teresa ablaze, they’d throw him into the flames after her. After all, it’s a confessor’s job to ensure his penitent’s orthodoxy. Believe me, there’s no demon as terrible as an insecure confessor. He prescribed new mortifications. Teresa prayed the rosary lying face down on gravel. She allowed two sisters to tie her to a cross and hung there until her arms went numb. I begged her to ask for a new confessor, but she refused. She had to prove her humility, demonstrate her obedience.
Finally, he forbade her to read. It was the last straw. Teresa had always been a reader. She didn’t hide novels in the bedclothes the way I did—and still do—but she often had a book in her hand. The year before, in 1559, the Inquisitor-General Fernando de Valdés had issued an Index of Prohibited Books—the longest ever. It included 253 titles—fourteen editions of the Bible, editions of the New Testament in Spanish, and over fifty books of Hours. The Jesuits had a library at San Gil, and before the Index, sometimes they’d lend her a volume—Juan de Cazalla’s Light of the Soul or Audi, filia, by our very own Juan de Ávila. But now, every book about mental prayer or recollection was forbidden, under pain of excommunication. Especially if it was written in Spanish. Books in Latin were considered less dangerous because only learned men could read them, and they knew how to interpret them correctly. But books in Spanish were accessible to less educated people, women, for example, and who knew what a woman might do with a book about finding God in her own heart? She might turn into an alumbrada or a Protestant.
And now Teresa couldn’t even read the two or three books that were still permitted to the rest of us. Well, she’d had enough of Álvarez. He’d commanded her to wear a hair shirt for an entire week. She went to Mother Josefa and got one, then brought it back to her cell to put on. But instead of placing it under her shift, where it would chafe her skin and cleanse her soul, she tied it over her habit. “He said to wear it,” she chuckled. “He didn’t say where.”
“Take that off,” he snapped when he saw her. “What will people think?”
“You care too much what people think, Father,” she retorted. “What people think is less important than what God thinks.” I could see that Maridíaz had had an effect on her.
To make matters worse, Teresa’s visions were growing more frequent and elaborate. Father Baltasar sat by the grille, twisting and untwisting the hem of his cassock. Did her visions come from the Devil or God, he was surely wondering. The Devil or God? The Devil or God? Thedevilorgod? If they came from the Devil, he had to put a stop to them. But if they came from God, by tethering Teresa, he would be working against the divine will.
One morning I was ironing furiously in the laundry room. Mother Josefa had given me some tassels, fringe and ribbons to sew onto vestments destined for a monastery in Salamanca, which I was now pressing into place. My stitching was so fine that priests from all over Spain ordered attire from me, and since Mother Josefa considered this a great honor for Encarnación, I never refused a request. Juana Isabel and I were getting the garments ready to return to the priests. I used three irons. Two warmed while I wielded the third, pressing down hard on the material, then shifting it carefully over the ironing table. When that iron cooled, I put it back over the fire, picked up a hot one, and continued my work. In the meantime, Juana Isabel folded each newly pressed vestment carefully, packed it in straw, and placed it in the crate the messenger would hoist into the cart to take north.
Teresa’s sister Juana came in. She was five months pregnant and already waddled like a goose. Nevertheless, she did her best to make herself useful, testing the irons to make sure they weren’t so hot they’d scorch the fabric. She’d wet her index finger and touch the metal, declaring her verdict on each instrument. To be honest, the poor child was so clumsy, I’d have preferred she just watch, but I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so I just kept an eye on her and prayed she wouldn’t drop a heavy iron on her foot. I needn’t have worried. In a short time she grew tired and sat down to rest. She took some yarn out of a satchel and began to knit a bootie—knit, knit, purl, knit, knit, purl. We were laughing over the feminine ways of priests—so fastidious about their bobbles and trimmings—when Teresa rushed into the room.
She’d hardly embraced her sister when the words gushed from her mouth. “It was so marvelous! It was like nothing you could ever imagine. He spoke to me! He touched me! I can’t explain it. It was different from the other times. He gave me something, a token of His love, a sign, a proof that it was really He.” And then, something about a rosary, a crucifix, jewels.
I understood she’d had another vision, but the syllables spilled out so fast, I could hardly grasp her meaning. “Slow down, Teresa,” I said, still ironing. The messenger would leave soon for Salamanca. Sister Escolástica, the cellaress, had ordered he be given meat and ale out in the carriage house, but as soon as he was done eating, he’d want to be on his way.
Teresa sat down next to her sister. “I was praying in the chapel, when all of a sudden I became aware of His most holy presence.”
“Christ was there in his Divine Humanity,” I said automatically.
“In his Divine Humanity!” echoed Juana excitedly.
“But I was afraid. I remembered what Father Baltasar said—to give him the fig—and so I raised my hand to make the gesture.”
“That’s awful!” exclaimed Juana Isabel.
“He was understanding,” said Teresa. “He knew I was just following Baltasar’s orders. He assured me my visions didn’t come from the Devil and promised to give me proof they really were from God.”
“What did you do?” asked Juana, wide-eyed.
“I was still afraid. I thought those sweet words might be a trick to get me to let down my guard, so I held up the ebony crucifix at the end of my rosary and pointed it right at Him. You know, the Devil can’t abide the sign of the cross. One glimpse of a cross, and he flees.”
“And then?” I’d put down the iron.
“He asked for the crucifix. He held out his blessed hand, and I placed the cross in it. His fingers were long and white and as soft as the catkins of pussy willows.”
“I always gather pussy willows for Saint John’s Day,” said Juana stupidly.
“He held it for a while. Then He took my hand in one of His and placed my ebony crucifix in it. When I looked down, I saw that it was adorned with four large stones of indescribable beauty. Stones more gorgeous than diamonds, more exquisite than any earthly gem. A diamond would look cheap next to these treasures.”
“Do you have the crucifix?” asked Juana excitedly. “Will you show it to us?”
Teresa plunged her hand into the folds of her habit and took it out. She held it gently, as if she were afraid of dropping it and loosening the stones. She stared at it a moment, her eyes wide with awe. “Oh, my Lord and my God,” she whispered. “It’s so magnificent.” Juana Isabel and I exchanged a quick glance. What she held out to us was a standard rosary with a plain black crucifix—the same one each of us carried in her pocket. There were no priceless jewels.
“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” said Teresa softly. “But no one can see them but me. The same thing happened to Saint Catherine. Jesus placed a gold ring with precious pearls on her finger, but no one else could see it. Don’t trouble yourselves about it.” She smiled blissfully.
“Can I have it?” begged Juana.
“Of course, Juanita.” Without hesitating, Teresa handed her the precious object. Juana’s face lit up. She threw her arms around Teresa’s neck and kissed her. “Thank you, Teresita,” she cooed. Then she wrapped the rosary in a handkerchief and placed it tenderly in her knitting bag.
I didn’t know whether Teresa was crazy or truly blessed. I mean, when someone tells you something is there, and you can clearly see it’s not there, what are you supposed to think? But I guess that rosary really was miraculous because, after Juana took it to Alba, the parish priest laid it on the eyes of Doña Iria de Toledo, an aristocratic lady who suffered from cataracts, and she was cured. It’s true. Many people, including Doña Iria’s surgeon, swear it.
Suddenly, I smelled the awful odor of something burning. “Oh, my God!” I cried. I had scorched the hem of a chasuble. “Oh, no,” I moaned. “Now what will I do?”
Teresa took the material in her hand. “I’m sorry, Angélica. This is all my fault. But look, it’s just a little piece at the bottom. You can snip some from an inside seam and cover it up.”
If you’re really a saint, I thought, why don’t you perform a miracle here and now? Make this cloth whole again! Instead, I said, “Go ask Escolástica to give the courier more ale, and I’ll try to fix this.” She strode to the door as briskly as a girl. “Don’t tell anyone else about the crucifix,” I called after her.
She didn’t follow my advice. She went right to Father Baltasar, who hemmed and hawed and finally told her that even the gem-studded crucifix was no proof that her visions were authentic, especially since no one else could see the stones. “Keep on giving those visions the fig,” he told her.
But Teresa was shrewd. At the time, the Dominicans were waging a campaign against mental prayer. They considered the teachings of men like Osuna misguided, if not heretical. Praying, they said, should be done by rote, in the traditional way and supervised by priests. And as for visions, locutions, and ecstasies, it was all rubbish. A few of God’s chosen might enjoy such favors, they conceded, but for the most part, visionaries were frauds. Especially women visionaries. You’d think Teresa would avoid Dominicans like the plague, but instead, she faced the enemy head-on. She sought out a brilliant Dominican theologian named Domingo Báñez and asked him his advice. I guess she thought that if she could get him to defend her, everyone else would leave her alone. But Báñez was noncommittal. He didn’t back Álvarez, but neither did he discount the possibility that Teresa’s visions came from the Devil. What he told her was that giving the fig to the Lord was a sin. “An image of Jesus should always be venerated,” he said. “A beautiful picture, even though it was painted by a scoundrel, is still precious. It’s the image you’re honoring, not the source of the image.” Poor Teresa. They pulled her this way and that way until she nearly lost her mind. The one who finally put a stop to it was Pedro de Alcántara.
I’d heard of Fray Pedro—he was famous even when I was a child—but I’d never seen him. Some people venerated him as a saint, even in his lifetime. Others said he was a lunatic who carried austerity to such unhealthy extremes that he made a mockery of monastic life. He was a Franciscan, a discalced friar in some small town I’d never heard of. He zigzagged across Spain barefoot, wearing only sackcloth and a girdle of plate. He ate only leaves and berries and went for days without sleeping. When he did sleep, it was rarely for more than an hour at a time and usually in a trough so short he had to remain curled up or on his knees. In the monastery his cell was only a vara and a half long, much less than the length of his body, and there he slept with his head against a board. People said he never wore his hood, no matter how hot the sun or cold the wind. He rarely raised his eyes. In fact, he lived in the same monastery for three years without ever seeing the face of a single one of his brothers. He hardly ever spoke to women. He preached among the poor in the worst neighborhoods, those inhabited by thieves and assassins, but since he lived in abject poverty, what did he have they’d want to steal?
The news that Fray Pedro was coming to town made Álvarez nervous. “A nut case,” he said. “An extremist. There’s no reason why a holy man can’t take a bath once a year. And a good meal now and then never made a person less virtuous.” But Teresa was anxious to meet him. His ideas about returning monastic life to its primitive origins were akin to her own.
With Mother Josefa’s permission, she and I, accompanied by Father Baltasar, went to find him in the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Anunciación.
A wisp of a man, Fray Pedro was sixty-one years old, but looked ninety-one. His face was rough and knotty, like a gnarled root. His body was stooped from his walking with his eyes on the ground. His tattered clothing—I can hardly call his garment a habit or a soutane—was as rigid and coarse as tree bark. I expected a vinegary character, cured by a life of abstinence and solitude, but in fact he hardly spoke at all, and when he did, he radiated kindness. He smiled often, the corners of his cracked lips turning upward like a crescent moon, his tiny eyes disappearing into his rumpled visage, his knobby cheeks bulging. “Sometimes I run through the woods singing for sheer joy,” he told us. “I’m the Lord’s town crier!”
Father Baltasar and I left Teresa to kneel at his feet and say her confession. She was with him a long time, perhaps an hour or more. In the meantime, Father Baltasar sat with me in the vestibule at the back of the church. “Let’s hope he talked her out of this harebrained idea to start a new convent,” he grumbled. “After all, a nun can’t just walk away from her convent and start a new one.”
My mind began to wander. I wondered if Braulio really felt remorse for what he had done to me. I wondered where he was. I started to fidget. Father Baltasar glared at me.
Finally, Teresa and Fray Pedro rose and moved down the side aisle toward the rear pews. She walked behind him, her head bowed, her lips moving.
“Well, Father,” said Fray Pedro, addressing Baltasar. There was a touch of irony in the way he called the younger man “Father.” I shifted my weight nervously. I was afraid there might be a fight. Baltasar Álvarez was a heavyset young man with a porcine face and a ruddy complexion. When he was upset, he grew crimson from the top of his forehead to the tips of his fingers. At the moment, he was as red as a suckling pig roasted and candied for Christmas. He chewed his tongue and bit his lip. I thought he was going to make a petulant remark, but instead, he exhaled noisily. Teresa kept her eyes glued to the floor.
“Father Baltasar,” said the aged friar purposefully. I was amazed at the resonance of his voice. “Sister Teresa’s visions and locutions come from God. The mortifications to which you’re subjecting her serve no purpose. They must stop. And so must this nonsense about exorcism.”
Álvarez’s lips quivered. “Yes, Father,” he said, almost inaudibly.
“Another thing, Father. Her plan to start a new convent that follows the primitive rule is an excellent one. Christ calls us to reject worldly values and follow Him.” His voice was calm and his eyes steady. Nothing about his demeanor suggested anger, but Álvarez tensed. The old man’s words surely stung. The men of San Gil were gaining a reputation for high living. “I have experience dealing with the Holy Father, our blessed Pope Pius IV,” Fray Pedro continued. “I know about starting religious houses—patents, permissions, that sort of thing. I will help Sister Teresa, Father Baltasar, and you will not stand in the way.” He still looked completely unruffled.
“Yes, Father,” murmured Álvarez.
He got the message, I thought. He won’t make trouble. I felt suddenly exhilarated. “My God,” I said to myself, “this is really going to happen.” I looked at Teresa. She was beaming.
At that moment, I felt such love for my sister. She was about to set out on a great adventure! She was doing the will of God! It’s true that when she first talked of starting a new convent, I vacillated, but once we got to work, I threw myself into the project. And I have to say this, even though it might sound like pride, Lucifer’s sin: She couldn’t have done it without me. My name may not go down in history, but Teresa de Ahumada would never have succeeded if it hadn’t been for me.
Angélica del Sagrado Corazón, Carmelite
Toledo, 22 August 1576