Page 121 of The Familiar

When he had tipped too far in either direction, Luzia’s mother had been there to reach out a hand and steady him. But when Blanca died, he lost his balance. He swayed from moment to moment, mood to mood, chased from one day to the next by loss. Sometimes he worked and came home for his meals, but more often he would wander from his route and simply stand in the street, talking or weeping, face raised to the clouds, looking for some sign Luzia didn’t know. A neighbor brought him home one evening and whispered, “I found him speaking Hebrew outside of San Ginés. I don’t know who else heard, but he must be careful.”

Luzia had waited, frantic, sure that someone less kind had overheard and would denounce him, that the Inquisition would come for them both.

“If only he had been able to wash her body,” she said to Hualit. “If he’d been able to pray for her, to mourn her properly—”

But Hualit had no patience for such talk. “It wouldn’t matter if he’d been allowed to plead for her to find menuchah nechonah at the top of his lungs.” She tapped her temple. “His mind is unsettled.”

Then how do I settle it? Luzia wanted to know. She was twelve years old and she missed her mother and she didn’t know how to live with a man who wept and tore his garments, then vanished for days and came back bright-eyed and full of promises and plans.

One morning Luzia realized her father had returned home in the night, but without his cart. She wandered the streets looking for it, as if searching for a lost dog, whispering prayers that it would be around the next corner, the next, that some good and honest person would say, “Oh, not to worry. I knew it shouldn’t sit out on the street where just anyone could take it.” She had walked until her feet bled, and when she’d finally made herself return home, her father had been whistling as he sat at the table, scrawling notes on the paper they used to wrap the bread. The cart didn’t matter, he told her. They would open up a shop.

Eventually he stopped coming home at all. They lost their apartment. Luzia went to work for the Ordoños. Her father would appear sometimes at Hualit’s house or in the alley behind Calle de Dos Santos. Luzia would try to feed him, try to get him to stay and talk. He would only take bread if it had been burnt, vegetables if she told him they were starting to rot. If she offered him money, he gave it away.

“He thinks he’s atoning,” Hualit said. “He can’t forgive himself for not burying your mother properly.”

One winter Luzia used her wages to buy him a new coat and boots. She had saved for months so that she could know he would at least be warm when he was out wandering. He’d donned the coat proudly, beaming with pride. He’d done a joyful dance in his new boots and told her that a daughter was a blessing.

Two days later, she was walking near the Prado when she saw a group of people gathered by one of the bridges. The cuadrilleros were trying to fish a corpse from the river.

She told herself not to look, to go home, that it was none of her concern. But her feet were already carrying her through the crowd. Her father knelt beneath the bridge, his hands clasped, his face tilted to the sky, exultant. He was barefoot and dressed in rags. He’d frozen to death in the night.

Hualit warned her not to claim his body. He might be a beggar, but he was also a rumored Judaizer. “It’s too dangerous, querida,” she’d said. “There’s nothing you can do for him now. We all end up in the same place anyway.”

“I killed him,” she had whispered. The new coat and boots had been too fine, too precious. Of course he had given them away. If she had simply left him to his threadbare clothes and worn-down boots, he would have been cold, but he would have lived.

Hualit sighed. “At least he died happy. That’s more than most of us can hope for.”

Now Hualit was dead too.

Days later Luzia had gone to the bridge. She’d recited what she could remember of El Maleh Rachamim. She prayed that the coat would keep someone warm. She prayed she wouldn’t end in the cold on her knees.

All curses require sacrifice, Donadei had once warned her. How she had fretted over those words, over the meaning of sacrifice, when so little ever came from loss. She had killed her father with her love, her fine intentions. Now her love would kill Santángel too. She would destroy him and herself. This would be her offering.

She rested her head on Santángel’s chest. “Do you know any real magic? Grand magic? The kind in stories?”

He took her hand, pressed his lips to her knuckles, then he rested their clasped palms against his heart. “Only this,” he said as morning drew near. “Only this.”

CHAPTER 53

On the day of the auto de fe, Marius Ordoño chose to stay in his bed. It was a feast day, so he would have to rise and go to mass later. But for now, he would just sleep a while longer. He knew if he rose and requested food, Águeda would prepare something for him but she would do it grudgingly. The meat would be tough. The soup would have no salt. He couldn’t help but feel the cook was judging him for Valentina’s absence. Besides, the kitchen seemed very far away and the morning was a cold one.

When he rose to relieve himself he heard the sound of some stringed instrument being played, and he wandered through the house in his nightclothes, trying to discover the source. At last he arrived in the empty nursery where a window had been left open. In the house across the way, he could see a woman seated at a harp, her hands moving slowly over the strings. He sat down and listened and after a time he wept.

Across the street the woman at the harp played on, unsure of why she’d chosen to return to the music room that morning when it had been so long since she’d sought pleasure in it. She didn’t know whom she was playing for or why she’d chosen such a sad piece. She’d never given much thought to the residents of Casa Ordoño, and so she didn’t wonder where the women had gone. She played and played, without thought for the way her fingers stung, or for the scullion who had gazed out the window and longed for music, and who would never hear her song.

In the kitchen below, Águeda and her niece played cards, since there was nothing else to do. Her son sat at the table, fiddling with a spoon and brooding. She had gone to mass that morning and prayed for Luzia’s soul. No doubt the scullion had gotten what she deserved for her wickedness, but Águeda could be generous. She made sure to offer prayers of thanks too, that the Ordoños hadn’t been imprisoned or had their property taken, that she still had a job and could pay her rent, since her husband was long dead and her son did nothing but mope over Quiteria Escárcega now that the playwright had left for Toledo. Another gift from God. She set a bowl of sweet porridge made with cinnamon and honey before him, commanded him to eat, and said another prayer that it would cure him of his sighing.

The king had arrived in Toledo the previous night. His gout had made the travel unpleasant, along with the news that Pérez had escaped him once again. There were rumors the traitor was sailing for England to find a buyer for his secrets. He cursed himself for his indecision, for letting Pérez proceed with his torneo, for the mad speculation and rumors it had fostered. Today would be the first step in setting all to rights. He would pray with his people. They would be reminded of the cost of heresy and that one might run from Spain but not from God. And when the traitor was caught and La Casilla seized, Philip would make it a holy place. He would let his ministers sell off Pérez’s paintings and his heaps of silver cloth. He would have every image of his labyrinth impresa smashed.

When he entered the Inquisition district, Philip saw the elaborate scaffolding and amphitheater that had been raised in the month since the auto de fe had been announced, and he noted that the stage with the rostrum for the Inquisitor General sat higher than the balcony set aside for the king and his children. Perhaps it troubled him or maybe it pleased him, for Philip was a devout man. Who is to know what thoughts fill the head of a king?

Quiteria Escárcega woke at dawn, ate a boiled egg sprinkled with chopped thyme, and wrote furiously for two hours. She had been surprised to receive Valentina’s letter asking for help and requesting an invitation to Toledo. In fact, she hadn’t quite believed the woman would really make an appearance. But one day a knock sounded at the door and there she was in a surprisingly fashionable cobalt traveling cape, a single sad trunk beside her.

They took up a collection for Luzia among Quiteria’s friends, sent letters and requests for provisions to the warden, and consulted priests and astrologers on what more could be done. Quiteria had no housekeeper and she’d thought Valentina might complain, but she’d only set to work, washing clothes, scrubbing floors, and arranging Quiteria’s pages in neat stacks that were invariably in the wrong order. She seemed to need occupation and Quiteria didn’t mind the help. Neither of them could cook, so they muddled through meals of burnt bread and sardines, subsisting mostly on plates of cheese and olives, and plenty of wine.

One evening over glasses of jerez, Valentina had turned to her and said, “Am I not appealing enough to corrupt?”

When Quiteria had met Valentina at La Casilla, she had sensed that beneath the sour expression and the meager jewels was a woman waiting for a chance to live. From the first kiss, she was proven right. Valentina had a glutton’s heart and had spent too many years surviving on scraps. Quiteria was shocked to discover that, after years of infamy and seeking every kind of pleasure, she had finally found a lover who could keep pace with her.