The Fan-Maker's Inquisition (7 page)
Read The Fan-Maker's Inquisition Online
Authors: Rikki Ducornet
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #Literary Fiction, #The Fan-Maker's Inquisition
—Is this a question for the Comité?
—No, citizen. It is Landa who is thinking.
—So I thought.
—[She continues:]
Exhausted, Landa lets the fan fall from his hand. His excesses, the excesses of his convictions, have exhausted him. He should be feeling lighter, purer, exhilarated by the fires burning in his name. Instead he lies stricken by gravity, with out radiance, flesh-bound, impure. What must he do to be pure? It is as if he must in some obscure fashion pay a penalty to his God—for the exemplary care with which he fulfills his task
.
Is not the air rank with smoke? Do not bodies black with flies direct the pilgrim from Izamal to Mani? Are not the monasteries reverberating with the sounds of thrashings? And is not the mark of Cain seen everywhere on the faces of the damned? For disease burns through their numbers like a forest on fire, causing fevers and lacerations, torments unimaginable. Fetuses fall from the womb before term; at the breast, infants wither away; men and maidens in the flower of youth collapse at the threshold of their houses, never to rise again
.
Is this not all as God wishes? Is it not acute enough? Has he still not pushed the limits of the possible? And if the entire world could be set on fire, would that cleanse it of sin? As Landa succumbs to sleep, he prays that before he dissolves into death, he will manage to push the world further toward completion, push it into a new orbit, one that will carry it closer to God
.
He dreams:
Of things that day seen, having expected something sensibly different. A black water, perhaps; balls of hair stuck with pins; a wheel of eels. Or an explosion in the air, a sound like thunder or laughter in the room, but no. The only sound was that of the surgeon’s knife cutting into the body of the mapmaker, Kukum. A fluid sound, soft and intimate, a sound like that of the sea lapping the shore. One by one the organs were removed from the body and placed on the surgeon’s low table for Landa’s inspection. The First Provincial knows that the Devil cannot accomplish what Nature cannot, and yet he was bewildered and dissatisfied, for demons are said to leave the mouth of the dying witch in the form of wasps or flames. Recently, in Salamanca, a witch had vomited thimbles and feathers; her stomach contained an iron knife. In Madrid, another witch—a child of twelve—expelled more than twelve thousand moths
.
“One could not hope for a better specimen of man,” the surgeon had said of Kukum. Indeed, each object was perfect in conformation; the surgeon found no abnormalities. Landa had taken up the brain, so like a thing one might find clinging to a fisherman’s net, the heart like apiece of ripe fruit, the viscera somehow familiar. The map-maker’s eyelids were perfect; with the skill of a pearl diver, the surgeon removed a lachrymal sac and placed it on Landa’s open palm
.
“I could not be on more intimate terms with him,” Landa muttered, “had I been his maker.” Despite himself, Landa was moved. The Maya were men after all, not hollow bladders bloated by smoke. Yet as the surgeon continued to prod the body with his knife, Landa hoped some flame might be seen, or a black pearl
.
“The body is like a maze,” the surgeon said, and he gave Landa the small bones of the ear
.
“A maze without a minotaur,” said Landa. “I expected you to find a minotaur.”
The surgeon laughed. “Not aflame, nor a frog; not even a cold wind. And that is a curious thing.”
Landa dreams that his bed comprises the entire world. He is surprised that God had made the world so small and flat. In his dream he hears the Lords of the Underworld clamoring for attention just under him. The surface of the world is very brittle and thin, and he—fully dressed in a miter and jeweled ring, a tunicle and purple gloves, and rich vestments laden with gold lace and gems—is very, very heavy. Immobile and fearful, he hears the pope’s voice worming into his ear: “Venerable brother! Heed the demons!” Indeed, the clamor beneath him has reached a fever pitch, and now he understands what they are shouting:
His days will be dreadful. His clothes will be made of paper. There will be disputes! His lips will quiver. His bowl of chocolate will fall to the floor and shatter. His nights will be worse. He will be pursued by the night. His house will be a place of devastation where animals and men will be compelled to void their bowels.
In his dream, Landa feels a crack, a fissure opening in the world beneath him
.
A Fish
The night before Kukum was put to death, he had dreamed of a tree so verdant, so deeply rooted in the ground, that it repulsed Death. Death, like the shadow of night, circled the tree but was unable to get close. The tree was so broad that Kukum, sitting beneath it, believed he was not about to perish
.
The Indians said of Kukum: “His speech is like the Tree of Life. It is Precious Jade.” Because his sermons never ended, they called Landa “He who eats his own offal twice.” When Kukum took leave of his wife for the last time, she said: “Beloved, you walk too close to the fire.”
Kukum’s final words to Landa were: “I would rather hit my head against a stone than attempt to reason with you.” Landa pointed to the wall of Kukum’s cell and said: “Here is an entire wall of stone. I offer it to you in parting.” Knowing he would be tortured, Kukum, already weak with hunger and loss of blood, and fearing he might divulge the secrets in his keeping, walked to the wall and hit his own temple so violently he cracked the bone
.
Landa looked down on the scribe’s body with bitterness. “Another who has cheated the Church out of a confession,” he said. “Another sinner for Hell.” Then he called the surgeon
.
The following day was one of marvels. First of all, Landa had been suffering from an intermittent fever. At midnight, he thought to inscribe the secret name of God on twelve holy wafers. Each hour thereafter, he took one of these on his tongue, saying:
| Hour One: | “When the sun burns with brilliance, I do not gaze upon it with admiration.” |
| Hour Two: | “Nor do I admire the moon, even at its most majestic.” |
| Hour Three: | “My heart has never, not even secretly, glorified the sea.” |
| Hour Four: | “Nor the sunset.” |
| Hour Five: | “I have never once adored the stars as the pagans do.” |
| Hour Six: | “Nor sensually looked upon my own member.” |
| Hour Seven: | “Nor upon the naked body of another, unless that body was a corpse.” |
| Hour Eight: | “I have never delighted in flavors.” |
| Hour Nine: | “Nor perfumes.” |
| Hour Ten: | “Nor the faces of women, clean or unclean.” |
| Hour Eleven: | “I have forever banished all licentious thoughts from my mind.” |
| Hour Twelve: | “My love for the Cross has not once wavered.” |
These last words were spoken just before the bells sounded. His fever broke, not to return
.
After Mass, Landa wrote upon the air, evoking the Divine Unity with one finger, the Trinity with three, and the Five Wounds of Christ with his entire hand, so that the air would be received within his lungs as the Holy Book is received by the eyes. Then, just as he returned to his rooms, Melchor, whom he had not seen all morning, appeared like Merlin with a miraculous tuna clearly marked with what Melchor supposed were kabbalistic characters
.
Landa had the fish—which was so large that Melchor had hired two Indians to carry it all the way from the market to the friary—laid out on a large piece of clean white linen, exorcised, and blessed. Then he stood in silence for what seemed an infinite time, looking at those fantastic letters—letters of light, of shadow, of fire—which danced over the fish’s flanks. An hour passed. The heat in the room was intense, and the corpse began to smell. More time passed. The sun in its turning dipped past the roof and flooded the room with light. Melchor’s feet, always sensitive, pained him horribly. Still, Landa could not tear his eyes from those letters. So intently did the Inquisitor stare at the fish that it dissolved. For a moment he looked into a deep pool of nacreous water. The day grew hotter. Melchor, feeling dizzy, as quietly as he could, fetched himself a stool, as with a whisper, a large black bird dropped down from the sky and perched at the window
.
The fish appeared to swell a little. However, there was progress. As the stench, more and more palpable, informed every particle of air, the letters, elusive yet seemingly infused with life, stuttered across the bright scales with greater precision until Landa was able to read:
“Tophet!”
“Tophet?” Melchor was as perplexed as he was astonished. “Tophet?” Had he heard the word before? He thought not
.
“Such as Isaiah’s Tophet: broad and deep. A pyre, Melchor. A fiery trench. This is what the fish, and our Lord, say we must prepare.”
“But not to roast the fish!” Melchor cried in dismay. He did not wish to eat the fish, rotting as it was before his eyes. A number of birds, all black, had settled on the window ledge to gaze attentively at the corpse
.
“To roast heretics, what else? To roast pagans, stubborn as mules, mocking mysteries, worshiping stones, fornicating in the manner of hares, Visigoths, and Turks. For buggering their wives, as Mahomet did; for having no laws against bestiality; for going at it like Templars.”
“Templars?”
“In other words, for coupling in the manner of Cathars.”
“Like snakes!”
“Until now I melted them down in humble fires in twos and threes and fours. But an exemplary Tophet is in store: This is what the fish means.” A flock of birds, black as ink, as irrefutable as friars, carpeted the window ledge and the balcony
.
“Torment!” Melchor exclaimed, suddenly excited. “I believe the fish says ‘Torment.’ “Indeed, the letters, spilling this way and that, had shifted; shuddering like beaten metal, the body was strangely animate. “I fear,” Melchor whispered in awe, “that having spoken so eloquently, the fish is about to explode.”
Landa made the sign of the cross with all five fingers before swaddling it well in its cloth
.
“Or is it my own heart,” Melchor whispered, just loud enough for Landa to hear, “that is wanting to explode?”
“A thing said to happen to hearts bewitched…” Landa gazed at Melchor thoughtfully
.
And Melchor, letting out a cry and falling to his knees—knees already bruised and bloody from praying—took up the hem of Landa’s gown, weeping: “I must confess!”
Hearing this, Landa scowled. Then, with exaggerated delicacy, he rested his fingertips on the top of Melchor’s shaved and greasy head
.
Barely audible, Melchor continued: “There is a woman…one of their small females…to tell the truth, not much bigger than a dwarf. But lovely. She has come each day this week to the gate with a gift of flowers. Yesterday, I approached to see if she is as bewitching from near as from far, and to see if she is real, not one of their sorcerous illusions. Never have I smelled anything as sweet as the flowers she carried—”
“Tixzula,”
Landa spat. “A seductive fragrance.”
“Small as she is, she is wondrously comely—”
“Smoke!” Landa pulled away from Melchor’s grasp. “Smoke vomited from the mouth of a snake!”
“She is a dream, then!”
“The whore is Kukum’s wife—or, rather, his widow. She thinks her husband is alive. She hopes the fragrance of the
tixzula
will soften my heart.”
“She is marvelous fair,” Melchor wept. “I am mad with longing. This I say with shame!”
“Fool! Do you fancy I am ignorant of your desires?”
“Do not think I have not scourged myself,” Melchor cried, his knees oozing blood. “For the past week I have eaten green fruit and drunk brackish water! I do not sleep but each night work on a vast illuminated map of the Holy Land for the instruction of the many orphans in our care. And I am painting the procession to Calvary around the border as you asked—”
“Good.”
“—as well as the comprehensive map of the Yucatán, which, as we speak, becomes ever closer to the truth. Yet, although I exhaust myself and feel I am about to collapse beneath the weight of my humiliation, I—”
“You cannot keep yourself from following her.”
“And fearing for her! When I see how our armed constables threaten her with their swords and sticks when she approaches the gate.”
“All week she has come,” Landa agreed. “She has offered me the best she has: a fat fowl, black honey in the comb, large brown eggs, chocolate, and—these past three days—flowers. These things, with my permission, the constables share among themselves. A scribe has written a letter for her, and this is placed in the basket, along with her gifts for me. A friar brings me the letter; I toss it on the grate; I will have nothing to do with her, and yet she persists. But tonight, at sundown, Kukum’s body will be doused with wax and set on fire, along with the few books he, in his vanity, shared with me in order to teach me of his people’s so-called ‘excellence.’ Yes, you look surprised, but ‘excellence’ is the word he used. I cannot tell you how dismayed I was by his presumption. And tonight she will be told the truth
.
“But now,” Landa continued, “let me tell you a story so that you will appreciate the danger you are in. Come—” Landa designated the stool upon which Melchor, whimpering with pain, eased his bony ass. “Rest, poor fellow! What a state you are in!” Then Landa told Melchor the following story.…
Tamales