A Woman of Seville (10 page)

The ladder-man tries to soothe me. He finds a reed pen and a square of parchment in his pocket, and writes something like this. ‘The ladder can only teach you how to balance your own body. In the citadel you will learn the supreme art of shared balance.’

Reluctantly I release my ladder. I watch it all the way out of sight and out of mind, because once it’s disappeared I can’t believe I got so worked up over some palings of wood. I must be suffering physical exhaustion from the climb. It’s very hot in here too. If I don’t sit down in a minute I could very well faint.

But the citadel watchman hasn’t finished with us yet. He makes both my lover and I sit in some giant scales and he tells us our individual weights. Then he hands me three
stones and tells me to carry the stones in my clothing so that the ladder-man and I will be exactly the same weight. He says we will get along better if we are the same weight. I put the stones in my front pocket as I’ve been told. The ladder-man and I wait at the black curtain until the watchman gives us the thumbs-up to enter the citadel.

‘Surely a man and a woman shouldn’t be the same weight?’ I whisper to my ladder-man. ‘It goes against all the marriage conventions.’

The curtain thrusts in our faces and the ladder-man pulls me out of the way just in the nick of time to save me being knocked down. Two strangers are passing through the curtain on their way out of the citadel.

‘Two pass out, so two can pass in,’ says the citadel watchman in his singsong voice, crossing out something on his ledger. ‘Two ladder-men, minus one bird.’

I look at the ladder-man for confirmation and he nods and in we go. From darkness into a spacious dome filled with lemon light. The dome is stained-glass, bringing in the sun. Rugs are being beaten. No, it’s flapping wings I’m hearing, as dozens of birds whirl about our heads. At first I think that the citadel must be a giant aviary for beautiful birds. I wonder why they let my cat in here, but then I see the other animals. A monkey hanging from a pendulum is making some very indecent noises. And there are cats that must have been
trained by gypsies because they’re walking tightropes swung across tall balancing poles. Fluffy Persian cats with flat faces and golden eyes appear to be walking on air. Oh well, cats do have a big advantage; those rudder-like tails must help. These huge fluffy cats are hilarious. Maio will probably get into a clawing fandango with one of them. Where has that scamp of mine gone?

The sound of beating hooves comes upon us from nowhere and I clutch the ladder-man in fright. Round the edge of the floor rides a horse with some sheik-like gentleman standing on its back. ‘Look at me. No hands, no reigns, no sense,’ I imagine him saying. Suleiman the Magnificent apparently, and I’m waiting for him to hit the floor.

Where is Maio? I still can’t see my cat. God forbid. Is that him crawling in a jiggly fashion up one of the tightropes as though he’s received an invitation from the other cats? I look around to see if I’m mistaken. No, that’s the only ginger cat in the citadel. The daredevil up the rope must be Maio. Spurred on by all the competition no doubt. Suddenly Maio falls in a twist but lands on his feet, then immediately starts to climb again. I shouldn’t worry. Cats know their limits more than humans do. Look at the idiot on the horse!

In the centre of the floor a ladder-man is spinning a giant metal wheel around in a circle as he sits on a lever
fastened to the top. He must be getting dizzy by now. Three ladder-men walk past carrying bowls on their heads. And a big man lifts another entire man on the end of a stick. What strength! I cackle in delight and the ladder-man squeezes my hand.

‘It was worth the climb,’ I say, ‘to see all this.’

A citadel attendant, another man with two cherries slung over each of his ears, takes us by the arms and escorts us to the other side of the room. Here is the place where the pilgrim ladder-women congregate. I wave to one of the women and she signals back. I have bigger muscles in my legs now, if she cares to take a peek beneath my skirt.

‘Archimedes’ arms,’ I say to my ladder-man, recognising the benches the couples are sitting on. The ladder-man and I are directed to one of these levers that have wooden planks as arms and a pivot point raised a metre above the floor. We copy the other couples—men and men, and also a few men with women who are already sitting on the planks working the levers. Up and down they go, on the Archimedes’ arms. I sit astride an arm of our lever and the force of my weight makes the plank hit the ground with a bounce. I bite my lip and taste blood. My ladder-man knows better and slowly applies his weight to his end of our lever so that I rise back up. We begin to move up and down on the planks, testing the strength of our bearings. I realise that if I jumped off the
lever I could hurt the ladder-man. He’s in my power and I’m in his. And if I force myself to the ground with all my weight, as I’m doing now, I can keep the ladder-man stuck up high for ages. I enjoy doing this and the ladder-man is so tolerant he doesn’t seem to mind.

He must know what I’m thinking because his expression is wry. We take care of each other; gently bouncing up and down for the most. The other couples to the left and right of us are pursuing the same motions. I suddenly feel the sonorous ease I felt as a child. My body is my own; my life in my Mama’s care. A tumbler troupe came to our village one day, and I stood beside Mama and watched them contort their doughy bodies in the sun. A man did backflips through the dust. The tumblers were standing on their hands and looking at us upside-down. We children bent over and looked at the tumblers through our legs in reciprocal spirit. We giggled so much. It was a special day; but the troupe didn’t come back to our village again, though I kept hoping they would.

After a while the citadel attendant comes over and balances a fat marble on the mid-point of our lever and tells us we have to try and keep the little ball still. ‘If the marble rolls off, you miss out on cherries,’ the attendant explains. No more jigging up and down then. The ladder-man and I have to keep the lever perfectly horizontal. And being
the same weight, thanks to the stones in my pocket, this becomes possible.

Sitting on the Archimedes’ arms with the ladder-man I look across at him and think that I could sit here forever and never mind. The lever is connecting our bodies. The task is collecting our minds. It is a shared purpose.

But some new pilgrims arrive and we are told our turn is over and we must get off the Archimedes’ arms. ‘Careful, careful,’ warns the citadel attendant seeing me rise up too fast and holding me down by the shoulder so that I remain in my seat. The ladder-man and I must take care to release our weight at the same moment. When we do, and we’re off the lever, the citadel attendant hands us some cherries for our ears, but I eat mine instead and the attendant shakes his finger and says ‘naughty, naughty’. He gives me some more cherries to hang over my ears but I think cherry earrings look ridiculous so I eat these cherries too, but only when the man isn’t looking. I put the pips in my pocket with the three stones.

Suddenly the floor begins to tip like a boat on a rough sea. I hold onto the ladder-man’s arm to stop myself sliding. Someone starts yelling (not my ladder-man) but even if it’s an earthquake I know I’m going to survive. I feel quite safe.

‘To port, to port,’ yells the attendant. ‘Run that way,’ he directs. And everyone is running to the left side of the
citadel to make the floor straight again. It’s a bit of a game. Nothing too serious. How have they managed to make the floor tip like this? We must be perched on a lever of some kind. It’s a false floor, like a false ceiling. There’s another beneath it probably. Now the attendant says, ‘Five persons run to starboard,’ for we are too many on the left side.

An attendant taps the ladder-man on the shoulder. ‘Sir, your time in the citadel has expired. Others are waiting to enter.’

I don’t mind leaving with the ladder-man. I feel lightheaded and serene. But then I remember.

‘What about the supreme art of shared balance. I didn’t get to see it.’

The ladder-man writes on his arm, ‘The lever was it.’

‘Oh.’ But I already knew how to do that. I guess I needed reminding.

We’re about to walk through the curtain when I remember Maio. There’s a ginger cat like mine perched on a balancing pole at the end of the highest tightrope. ‘How am I ever going to get him down from there?’

The attendant says, ‘Next time, see you next time,’ and pushes us through the big black billowing curtain. And I realise Maio must have been meant all along as some kind of offering or citadel sacrifice. He was always going to climb those poles and stay here with the feline lot. I’m upset with
the ladder-man for deceiving me. Not such a special place after all. When we step outside the citadel I tell him I’m going to climb down from the roofs and he should come back the quick way with me to Triana in a carriage. He ums and ahs—he hates being anywhere near the ground—but finally agrees.

When we get close to the street the ladder-man starts to look sick.

‘Come on. It’s easy,’ I cajole from the safety of the road where I stand nodding up at him.

I hail a carriage and get the driver to bring it over close to the wall, so the ladder-man can jump onto the roof, but the driver sees what my purpose is and won’t let the ladder-man attempt his stunt. My ladder-man will have to put his ladder on the ground and I can see he doesn’t want to do this. He’s not going to do it. He starts to panic, to look around for help. Furious, I climb back up my ladder and grab hold of his leg and tell him to come down or else. He’s breathing rapidly, and going red at the neck. I descend and enlist the driver for help but when I turn around the ladder-man has shifted higher up the wall again. As I watch, he scales the building in a trice and is resting his ladder against a chimney. He doesn’t look back or wave goodbye as he continues his climb. I watch him get smaller and smaller then disappear between the rooftops.

The carriage driver has driven off with another paying passenger so I have to walk home to Triana carrying my ladder all the way. The midday sun is fierce. My torn gown has exposed a piece of my shoulder and it begins to burn. The other drivers are taking siesta and another carriage doesn’t pass. But soon I forget my anger with the ladder-man. Maybe he knows something I don’t. Of course he does. He’ll turn to dust if he touches the ground, or maybe, in another life, he fell from a high tower and landed splat on his face in a pool of blood.

Usually when I come away from being with him I float free like a soap bubble. The hazy reality passes and I know who I am again. I don’t have any urge to see the ladder-man until Bishop Rizi impinges, or dusk returns and the ladder-man flickers into my vision and becomes an enticing fancy.

But today I’m missing him on solid earth. I clutch the three round stones in my pocket that make our weights match. I keep looking round for him and seeing people who I think are him. I know when I see him again I shall tell him that I’ve learnt the art of shared balance. And I’ll thank him for that.

Mid-summer and Seville is whitewashed and North African. Few sleep during siesta and many don’t retire at all. Like me, they prefer to sit in their patios fanning themselves, dipping bare feet into water-pails drawn from the deepest, coolest wells. I’m sitting in the plant-filled patio, doing exactly this when my master Pacheco approaches from the lane, rolls down a stocking and shares a pail with me.

The afternoon heat is bonfire strong. The water gurgling in the miniature fountain is providing a phantom coolness. Pacheco’s fifteen-year-old daughter Juana can’t sleep either. She enters the patio, swaddled in white linen like a newborn
babe. She serves us dates so moist they melt in my mouth. I feel like I’m about to melt too. Keeping still is sometimes worse than moving about. Yet when I was moving around earlier, I decided the opposite was true. Juana hands me a glass of apricot nectar, then disappears, but through the doorway I catch a glimpse of her unwrapping the linen cloth from her head and body. She’s unwinding her clothes like a bandage. Poor thing. To have to dress up like that to come outside. But the patio is open to the street and Juana is almost a woman now.

It’s weeks since I visited the Mercedarian convento and witnessed the painting of the penitent woman. When I came home that day, I decided to tell Pacheco where I’d been and what I’d seen. Rather than admonishing me, he congratulated me on my initiative. (Lucky it didn’t go the other way.) He informed Carlos Zamorana that Paula Sánchez was sitting for a painting which featured Father Rastro, and that, more importantly, Castle inspectors had been invited to view the painting. Zamorana’s inquiries into misconduct were temporarily suspended, pending the result of the Castle visit. The monk did not lie, because the inspectors visited the Mercedarian convento the day after I did. The painting was not condemned, but it was judged to be an indecent work of art. The commissioner and future owner of the painting, Doña Fillide, would be required to
keep it in a private room and not display it before a public audience of any kind.

Pacheco and Zamorana learnt pretty quickly of the outcome of the Castle inspection. This wasn’t surprising as both are part of the Inquisition’s censorial network of communications that extends across Europe and even as far as the New World. There’s a bit of a distinction though. The government-appointed Castle Inquisitors have munitions and guards at their disposal, they are a centralised force appointed by Royal Charter in Castile, whereas Zamorana and Pacheco are inspectors who answer to His Holiness the Pope, in Rome.

My master had several further discussions with Carlos Zamorana about the painting. He confided in me that Zamorana had developed an obsessive interest in the work of art and had requested an independent viewing, but Father Rastro has refused to let Zamorana into the convento for this purpose. Good on him, I thought. Rastro is wise to keep the harshest (if also the most intellectual) of Sevillian inquisitors away.

Pacheco trusted me enough to accept my opinion of the painting without seeing it for himself. He was curious about it though, in his circumspect fashion, and would no doubt find a way of viewing it in the near future.

As we sip the unpleasantly furry juice and soak our feet,
Pacheco says to me, as if reading my mind:

‘The Weddesteeg painting is dry now, or so I hear. It will soon be delivered to Fillide Rosano. ‘

‘You’ll get to see it for yourself at her party then,’ I say, cheekily.

Pacheco smiles. ‘Doña Fillide won’t wish to break Castle regulations. But I may get the privilege of a private viewing, I suppose…‘

With our feet sharing the bucket of water, it seemed the most fortuitous moment to broach another matter with him.

‘The Morisco boy, Luis—remember Luisito? He’s seeking release from the Mercedarians.’

‘Ah, the boy of your marvellous drawings!’ Pacheco over-enthuses, as though to cover up his real feelings.

‘I think I could persuade my family to take him in,’ I say, the idea having just occurred to me. ‘They have need of an extra hand.’

‘Father Rastro won’t want to set a precedent by releasing one of his Morisco charges,’ Pacheco replies matter-of-factly.

‘But you could possibly ask?’ I need to tell Luis I at least
tried
to help him.

‘You know, Diego, Luis will be free to come and go in a few years’ time. He will be a respected member of our community if he plays his cards right, and the fuller
his commitment to the Catholic faith, the better. Quite a privilege to be one of the few remaining Moriscos…‘

I withdraw my sympathy when Pacheco says, ‘You know, Diego…‘ I have some purchases to make for my master in town, so I use this as an excuse to head off on my own. It’s still uncomfortably hot, but I want to get away. It crosses my mind that I might run into Catarina taking a post-siesta stroll in the company of a duenna, or perhaps with one of her sisters.

I exit through the stable into the laneway behind the house. I don’t yet know which way I’m going to walk, but my legs, like a horse’s, guide me along a much-frequented route. Before long I’m in the open-air market of San Lorenzo, passing along a garish thoroughfare, breathing in dust of cinnamon and cloves. A spectacle of glazed fruits is attracting both flies and children. I keep walking, but round the next corner I slow for a moment to brush my hand against a red and gold hanging tapestry, to price a sapphireblue Aegean bowl.

As the afternoon shadows lengthen, more stalls open. The bazaars fill with shoppers and I hear foreigners speaking many tongues: Castilian, Berber, Arabic, Persian, vulgar Italian, French, Catalan, and even some English. Before I forget what I came here to do, I make my purchases for Pacheco. It’s easy to get sidetracked. Rare produce from the
New World is attracting a flurry of onlookers. Small exotic creatures tremble inside wooden crates. I stop to watch a tailor measuring a furry raccoon for a length of lapel. Turn down the next aisle and I’m greeted by a tumult of chirping birds. A milliner has his arm thrust inside a cage and is counting plumes on a green and yellow parrot. I imagine him festooning hat after hat after hat.

As I continue walking the stalls peter out, replaced by residential properties. Wrought-iron gates reveal chequered patios and shady courtyards where people are sitting, standing, squatting, sweeping the rush matting and drinking wine and syrups. The houses are mainly whitewashed but their fences are made from mud and sand and the colours blend where they join. High walls are engulfed by jasmine and jungle-bursts of creeper. I love the huge pink fluted flowers that hang upside-down and trail pollen across the cobblestones.

I get a heady mix of fear and entitlement walking the streets. I might be attacked by
pícaros
, but I can run fast if I have to. Around each corner is another familiar face, a friend maybe. I raise my hat to the Duque de Medina. And here is one of Pacheco’s servants lugging a sack of groceries. I nod to the servant who’s limping with his load, and he curses me. I should help him out, I know, but he’s going the opposite way.

Whether those who pass are high or low in rank, I always nod politely, but I like to keep on walking so as not to upset the flow of images, the sense of an unending river of people coursing by, and me as part of this river. I watch the faces moving into focus from a distance—some eyes look at me, some look away. I see all at once, the veiled or candid expressions, the colour of tiles in the patios, the spurt of water, the curving rays of daylight, the blackbirds beaking the fruit, the peel in gutters, the fragility of infants. A litter bearing a dead child, carried by weeping mourners, is the only thing I can’t look directly at this afternoon; instead I find myself pretending to remove an obstruction from the corner of my eye.

A little later, I’m overtaken by a religious procession for Saint Stephen of Hungary, an odd saint who demands that all his subjects marry. Pushing through the chanting crowd, I take refuge in an inn and wait for the procession to pass, peering through a small window whose panes are made of oiled parchment. The bartender keeps looking at me suspiciously, so I buy a pint of ale and give it away. (I’m not supposed to drink alcohol.) When the noise of fifes and drums has faded, I emerge from the bar, changing course to avoid running into the procession again. Turning down a laneway I’ve never noticed before, I hesitate in front of a Carmelite convento which advertises itself with
a commemorative plaque. Inside the gate is a stark patio lacking the usual Arabic tiles and refinements. Waxed gardenias in the window boxes are the only vegetation in sight. It is a small establishment, as are all female religious orders. I look at the first-floor windows with their drawn blinds. What time does siesta end in this place? Perhaps the blinds are drawn to stop novices looking out. I remember that I’ve come on this stroll hoping to find Catarina. Perhaps she’s destined for the cloister? For a moment I picture the slightly fabulous Catarina of the carnival (with her dusty skirt and conniving plans) enveloped in a black habit. Then I think better of it.

A fat old nun enters the patio. It looks like she’s coming to check on me, and judging by her square jaw she means business so I hurry back to the main streets and into the crowded thoroughfares. As I try to regain the jubilant rhythm of my former footsteps, I’m thinking of Luis again. How can I help the young Morisco if Pacheco won’t take an interest in him? Luis’s life-story is never going to be of his own making. His footsteps aren’t going to tap time with history as mine have been doing this afternoon, navigating the uneven flagstones of Seville, treading the streets almost proprietarily, at liberty to savour the call of vendors, the rustle of girls’ starched skirts, the tinkle of the tambourine drifting across the wide-angled squares. It is to
be my privilege, rather than Luis’s, to monitor the temper and climate of the day, to watch the residents moving fast and slow about their tasks, to fear those who press too closely, to regret the groans of the cripples from the church porches, the blind with their outstretched hands, the lame soldiers hobbling past in military garb always with a limping melody about their footfall. It is to be my fate, not Luis’s, to search the faces of the unlucky till my eyes are sore, until the things I don’t want to see eventually turn me back to the safer, freshly washed laneways and the plump-faced infants borne by lemon-scented women in my home barrio, San Vicente.

I sit down on an empty, unshaded bench away from the other people in the square. I find a reed pen and my pocketbook and begin drawing illustrations. I can’t rid my mind of the earlier conversation with Pacheco. It’s out of our hands, Pacheco was implying. Luis should have been born a couple of centuries earlier, or in another place.

I’ve read what the broadsheets have to say on the issue. The Inquisition wants these Morisco children to stay in Spain rather than follow their families across the ocean. At seven years of age the children are no longer bound by the prohibition keeping them in Christian lands. Many exiled parents are waiting to be reunited with their forsaken children. Some have sent Berber merchants with ransom
money, but the Church is reluctant to let their charges go. They feel obliged to protect the youngsters, and there are hundreds of them, from the curse of Islam.

I find myself sketching the bell at the friary gate. I picture Luis walking out the gate with a big smile on his face, his departure officially sanctioned. I make a few more silly doodles, then for no obvious reason I find myself sketching the Weddesteeg painting, the two foreground figures and the vertical post of the Cross that splits the painting down the middle. In the painting, as I remember, Paula has pride of place at the centre, kneeling directly in front of the Cross. This is a clue for some reason, and when I get up from the bench I don’t go back to Pacheco’s or continue my search for Catarina. I begin walking south, my sights set on the houses of Triana that soon come into view on the other side of the river.

I’ve never visited Paula, of course, but I’ve a rough idea where she lives, and perhaps a neighbour will be able to point out her street. I’ve no intention of calling on her. I just want to see where she lives. If I run into her coming across the bridge that will be a blessing.

Triana smells like a potter’s workshop. Here they make ceramics in abundance. Fumes are resinous and earthy and make me lustful. I lose myself in unfamiliar streets. I can’t bring myself to ask anyone where she lives. Eventually I
stoop down and ask a couple of children who won’t think the worse of me if they know who she is. They look a bit puzzled but they point out a street and I thank them. I turn down the next calle instead, so it comes as quite a shock to see Paula’s maid scrubbing a doorstep on my left. I increase my pace but my shoe strikes a stone. Too late, the maid has risen from the step, has recognised me, is calling out my name and urging me back. (How does she know me? But of course, she’s overheard my conversations with Paula in the marketplace.) I reluctantly make my way up to the door. The maid informs me that Paula is at home. I wait in the patio, dreading the meeting. What if I’ve called at an inconvenient time? Imagine if Paula is entertaining Bishop Rizi upstairs right now? To calm my nerves, I peruse the ceramic wall tiles. Most are decorative, but some have interesting pictures painted on them. A naval vessel, the
Santa María
, one of Columbus’s ships, catches my eye. And a pretty moss-brown rabbit, captured in flight.

A short time later Paula appears, wearing a mud-green dress and carrying her toy dog. She even looks great in green. You couldn’t say the same about most women.

So there will be no misunderstanding about the reason for my visit, I quickly come to the point. Can she talk to Father Rastro? Make him see how unfortunate Luis’s situation really is?

Paula walks over to me and transfers the spaniel into my arms. ‘I can take this little doggy into the Mercedarian fort when I’m not supposed to, but I’ll be damned if I can carry a boy out in his place! You’re asking too much of me.’