The Fan-Maker's Inquisition (8 page)

“Once, Satan devised a scheme to subvert God’s authority over his angels. Disguised as a soul released from Purgatory, the Enemy of Man stood before the gates of Heaven until persistence got him across the threshold and inside.”

“The thing is impossible!” Melchor was aghast. “Why would God allow it?”

“The Cosmos is so vast”—Landa sighed deeply as if in pain—“and there is so much for Him to see! He cannot attend to everything Himself. Besides, if He cannot trust his own Gatekeeper, whom
can
He trust?”

“I thought He was everywhere!” Melchor insisted, more and more out of sorts as the fish continued to manufacture atmosphere. “I thought He trusted no one!”

“He is!” Landa agreed. “He doesn’t! But that does not mean He’s got a finger in every pie and a thumb on every plum! Rest assured, however. That Gatekeeper was disposed of.”

“I’m famished,” Melchor moaned. “For I have taken only eggs in drink since dawn and twelve seeds of spurge.”

Landa gave him a biscuit from a gilded vase to suck and resumed his tale: “Satan moved among the angels, stirring them up and driving them to distraction. He had taken the form of a beautiful youth and in seductive tones described the pleasures of the material world: silk vests, foaming cups of chocolate, and, above all, the buttocks of pretty women
.

“Zélamir, always the most curious, said: ‘What is
Woman?
And what is this
Nature
which you say has endowed her with Perfection? And how can this be? For God has taught us that Perfection is to be had in Paradise alone.’

“‘If you call Perfection an endless expanse of time unrolling like a clean bandage to infinity, then indeed Paradise is perfect, and from me you have nothing to learn. But if your existence is like a thin soup without salt, meat, or marrow; if, in the middle of a dark and silent millennium, you awake taunted by the thought of a palpable husk; if a static pallet of cold vapor seems a poor substitute for an animated existence upon the world’s stage (so endearingly finite!), then a corporeal body and a woman are what you need. In all the Universe, she is the one object to excite cravings as delicious as is their satisfaction.’

“‘We have,’ said Cupidon, ‘encountered Ecstasy.’

“‘Well, then, imagine Ecstasy Manifest. An Empirical Fact. Imagine you have a Sensible Body and a prick as thick as my arm. Imagine a woman sprawled on a velvet counterpane, as eager to be fucked as you are to fuck her!’

“Relishing the prospect, the angels beamed
.

“Now, with cunning, Satan had made a small tear in the walls of Heaven, which—as everyone knows—are not built with mortar and stone, but are more like a silvery membrane—”

“—Similar to the goo that allows the eggs of frogs to float on the surface of a pond, or so I’ve been told,” said Melchor
.

“Very like that,” Landa agreed. He continued: “One by one the angels slipped from Heaven to follow Satan, who was already sailing toward that dark corner of the Universe where the edge of the world rises up from the muck and slime of First Causes. In a trice they were skimming the skies over Venice and then, with a great flapping of wings, came to settle at the naked feet of a courtesan, who, like the stars, had an irresistible influence over the bodies of men. Her ass, her breasts, her elbows and knees, were perfect spheres, her cheeks were like apples, her—”

“And her cunt?” whispered Melchor. “Surely she must have had a terrific cunt!”

“Her cunt was burning to the touch and well oiled, because she was a whore.”

Melchor tugged at his chin with such zeal that he pulled out a handful of hair
.

“Satan introduced himself and all the angels—Céladon, Cupidon, Zéphyr, Zélamir, Antinous, and so on—who lost no time but embraced Hyacinthe—for that was her name—wanting to enjoy her before she vanished like a dream, before they themselves would go up in smoke. For such is the nature of corporeality: here today and gone tomorrow.”

“And God?”

“God looked about and saw He was alone. There was no Zéphyr to rub His feet, no Céladon to comb the curls of His beard. In a moment, he saw the rent in His walls, he saw Hyacinthe and all His angels; He saw what was what. Rising from His throne in all His terrible majesty, He condemned His angels to perpetual banishment. And because He had lost them to a woman, He proclaimed that no woman would ever enter the Kingdom of Heaven
, not ever—
even though Time is infinite and Eternity without end. Mark my words, Melchor,” Landa continued, “Woman is Satan’s most lethal instrument. The one who has bewitched you is no better than the rest, and surely worse. She is a pagan, after all, who worships the corn of the field on her hands and knees, just as the brute animals worship grass.” To complete his argument, Landa intoned an Inventory of the Feminine Faults, starting with
Avidum Animal,
passing through
Vanitas vanitatum,
and ending with
Zelus zelotypus.

“To look on a woman with desire is to be polluted through the eyes.” Landa kissed Melchor on the top of his head before sending him on his way. “For did not Saint Matthew say, ‘Formed of a bent rib, she is by Nature bent’?”

Melchor tarried at the door. Although he had listened to the story attentively, and although it had impressed him, he thought that perhaps, as the Indians were creatures neither of God nor of Satan exactly but special cases, perhaps governed by laws of which he and Landa had no clear knowledge, Kukum’s widow might well be as she appeared: the embodiment of modesty
.

Seeing how Melchor lingered and the look of confusion he wore, Landa spoke again: “What does Woman do when she awakens, Melchor? Have you a notion?”

Sadly, Melchor shook his head
.

“How could you, poor sod! A celibate in spent weeds all your miserable life. Here is what you need to know to kill the snake that gnaws at your testicles:

“Woman, having passed the night dreaming of fancies and fornications, racks her throat, snorts and spits, pisses like a sow, and, still reeking of sleep, plumps herself down before her mirror, arming herself with tweezers, hair dye, the fat of bears, paring knives, the wax of bees, cobwebs, the milk of asses, brushes, combs, and sponges. She attaches her teeth with hooks and wire, dresses her hair like a salad, and glues on whatever won’t stay stuck or was never there.”

“But…” Melchor whined, “Kukum’s widow is nothing like what you describe. She is simple—”

“Nothing, Melchor, is simple! Except, perhaps, you yourself.” Landa pulled Melchor back by a sleeve into the worsening air of the room and sat him down. “Why do you think this woman’s skin is so smooth as to evoke a longing to bite into it as into a piece of fruit? Because she scrubs her face with a paste made of the dung of bats. And while we are on the subject, why does her hair shine so blackly? It is because of her diet of grasshoppers and their frass.”

“I have seen her at market,” Melchor attempted, “selling tamales. Tamales with peppers are what she eats, and she washes her face with water.”

“Do you know the story of the good soldier Pámfilo, who traveled in the company of Cervantes de Salazar?”

“No,” said Melchor, grumpily
.

“And who fell in love with a beautiful tamale vendor? Would you like another biscuit?”

Melchor nodded and, ebbing with sleep and irritation, stuck the corroded object into his mouth
.

“The tamales she sold were shaped very like the male member, and this fact, and one glance at the woman’s face, were enough to corrupt this brave and innocent soldier. He bought a tamale and ate it, licking his fingers after. He bought another; it was sweeter than the first. These tamales were so good, they melted in the soldier’s mouth. The tamale vendor had a little dish of hot pepper sauce, and this she held out to him so that he could dip the tamale into the sauce at his convenience
.

“‘What meat is this?’ Pámfilo asked, sighing. ‘So sweet!’

“And she replied: ‘Milk-fed deer.’

“Now, the tamales, the sauce, the woman’s dark eyes, her smile—all were glamours, and poor Pámfilo was bewitched. He hung around the market all day eating tamales and dipping them in sauce. When evening came, he followed the woman home through the woods. Walking behind her, he could see her body move beneath the thin cotton of her dress. In her hair, she wore a
tixzula
blossom, and this, too, enchanted him. But suddenly she vanished; it was as if the forest had swallowed her whole. All that remained was the scent of
tixzula.
And then he heard a cry, a number of shrill cries, and before Pámfilo could cross himself, he was surrounded by Amazons—”

“Amazons!” Melchor was at once attentive
.

“Amazons
, varoniles y belicosas!
Each one carried an ax of solid gold, and each one wore a little piece of moss over her secret parts. The poor soldier begged for mercy, but he was hacked to pieces anyway, his meat cooked up in a pot with peppers and, when it was tender, wrapped in masa and folded in husks. Then the tamales were stacked together in a large basket, which the beautiful Indian, dressed in white cotton, put on her head. Off she went to market to fool another soldier.”

To make the lesson stick, and although Landa could see that Melchor was exhausted—and the heat of late afternoon, the stench of the dead fish, were dizzying—Landa forced Melchor to recall
why they were there:
not, like the addled Las Casas, to speak of love, nor, like the maniac Cabeza de Vaca, to eat ants and trade shells, but to pacify the Indians and bring them to the Light of Christ. Not much later, the things Landa said to Melchor would serve him in court, when he would be called back to Spain to face the Council on the Indies. Asked to justify his outrages in the Yucatán, Landa would say:

“Furthermore, Melchor,” Landa continued, holding Melchor up by the neck of his robe, for he was close to collapse, “the Catholic Church forbids fornication with Indians. Cortés, it is true, fucked the one they called La Malinche, who proved useful. However, she was given catechism first
.

“And it must be added that Cortés seeded the land with statues of the Blessed Virgin—for he had the foresight to bring along hundreds of these. This in itself was enough to undo the sin. We say that this and that is so,” Landa droned on and on, “that Hell contains a lake of fire, that Jesus caused Lazarus to rise from the dead, that Jonah was commanded by Yahweh to go to Nineveh but instead went to Joppa and booked himself on a ship from which he was thrust into the sea and swallowed by a great fish appointed to this purpose. Such statements are Dogma
.

“Dogma is sustained by the true experience of Christ. The Christian, in partaking of Christ’s blood and flesh
, embodies
Dogma: His experience of God is visceral.

“Whereas the pagan relies upon figments to rule him and so is easily deceived. Figments replace facts for the Indian, and that is why they belong
not in the mind,
Melchor
, but in the fire.

“Finally: If Christian Faith were not superior to pagan figment, the Indians would not dry up before the Glory of the Church like toads in the sun. For do they not die in droves? Are not their numbers dwindling as we speak? Are not their mosques in ruin?”

As if in agreement, the many birds at the window all cried out together before clattering off. Surely the stench of the fish, now unbearable, had convinced them it was no longer worth hoping for
.

—Citizen, the Comité wishes to inform you that this is your final day of trial, perhaps your last hour.

—My last hour? Or the last hour of my trial? [She clenches her fists, perhaps to keep from trembling.]

—Most often the two coincide, although not always. [He sighs, as beneath a great burden, and, leaning forward, speaks. His voice is thick and strange, as though his tongue is swollen.] In gardening, as with digestion, rot is a necessary and natural process. It results in a fertile rose bed, a healthy constitution. The text under scrutiny—your text—is rotten and unhealthy. There is nothing natural or good about it; it is not representative of a natural process—

—[From the public, a stamping of feet. Someone shouts:]

Get on with it!

—It is representative not of the human spirit’s vast capacities but, rather, of spiritual vice—

—Spiritual vice?

—Vice! Of the spirit or, as in this case, spirits—as there are two authors responsible, not one. The language is excessive, obscene, peculiar.…The representation of the Creator—

—[From the public:]

The whore’s an atheist! Get on with it!

—The idea of the Creator has, since the Revolution, undergone a certain
beneficial evolution.…
But our understanding of Him, intact, is treated here with what can only be called perversity, a…perverse impiety. The book is an example of—