Of Love and Other Demons (12 page)

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Authors: Gabriel García Márquez,Edith Grossman

BOOK: Of Love and Other Demons
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‘We have not behaved well with the Viceroy,’ said the Bishop.

‘Was there any reason to?’ asked Delaura. ‘One does not knock on a bishop’s door unannounced.’

The Bishop did not agree, and told him so with great vigor. ‘My door is the door of the Church, and he conducted himself like an old-fashioned Christian,’ he said. ‘The impertinence was mine, because
of the illness in my chest, and I must do something to make amends.’ By the time he reached his bedroom door, he had changed his tone and the topic, and he said good night to Delaura with a familiar pat on the shoulder.

‘Pray for me this night,’ he said. ‘I fear it will be a long one.’

He did, in fact, feel as if he were dying of the asthma attack he had foreseen during the Viceroy’s visit.
Since an emetic of tartar and other extreme palliatives gave him no relief, he had to undergo an emergency bleeding. By dawn he had recovered his indomitability.

Cayetano, sleepless in the nearby library, was not aware of any of this. He had just begun morning prayers when he was informed that the Bishop was waiting for him in his bedroom. The Bishop sat in bed, having a cup of chocolate with
bread and cheese, and breathing like a
new bellows, his spirit exalted. One glance was enough for Cayetano to know that he had reached his decisions.

It was true. Despite the request from the Abbess, Sierva María would remain at Santa Clara, and Father Cayetano Delaura, with the full confidence of the Bishop, would continue to be in charge of her case. She would no longer be kept under a prison
regime and henceforth was to share in the general benefits accorded the residents of the convent. The Bishop was grateful for the acta, but their lack of rigor interfered with the clarity of the process, and therefore the exorcist was to proceed according to his own judgment. He finished by ordering Delaura to visit the Marquis on his behalf, with authority to resolve whatever might be needed until
the Bishop had both the opportunity and the health to grant him an audience.

‘There will be no further instructions,’ were his closing words. ‘May God bless you.’

Cayetano raced to the convent, his heart pounding, but did not find Sierva María in her cell. She was in the formal reception room, covered in precious gems and with her hair spilling down to her feet, posing with the exquisite dignity
of a black woman for a celebrated portrait painter from the Viceroy’s entourage. The intelligence with which she obeyed the artist was as admirable as her beauty. Cayetano fell into ecstasy. Sitting in the shadows and seeing her without being seen, he had more than enough time to erase any doubt from his heart.

At the hour of Nones the portrait was finished. The painter scrutinized it at a distance,
gave it two or three final brushstrokes and, before signing it, asked Sierva María to look at the picture. It was a perfect likeness of
her as she stood on a cloud surrounded by a court of submissive demons. She contemplated the canvas for some time and recognized herself in the splendor of her years. At last she said, ‘It’s like a mirror.’

‘Even the demons?’ asked the painter.

‘That’s just
how they look,’ she said.

The sitting was over, and Cayetano accompanied Sierva María to the cell. He had never seen her take a step, and her walk had the same ease and grace as her dancing. He had never seen her in any clothes but an inmate’s cassock, and the regal gown gave her a maturity and elegance that revealed how much of a woman she had already become. They had never walked side by side,
and he was charmed by the candor of their being together.

The cell was changed, thanks to the persuasive talents of the Viceroy and Vicereine, who on their farewell visit had convinced the Abbess that the Bishop’s reasoning was sound. The mattress was new, there were linen sheets and down pillows, and the articles needed for daily grooming and bathing had been provided. The light of the sea poured
in through the unlatticed window and sparkled on the fresh whitewash of the walls. Now that Sierva María’s meals were the same as those served in the cloister, it was no longer necessary to bring her anything from the outside, but Delaura always arranged to smuggle in delicacies from the arcades.

She wanted to share her food, and Delaura accepted one of the little cakes that upheld the prestige
of the Clarissans. As they ate, she remarked in passing: ‘I’ve seen snow.’

Cayetano was not alarmed. There were tales of a viceroy long before who wanted to bring snow from the
Pyrenees to show to the natives, for he did not know we had it right next to the sea, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Perhaps, with his innovative arts, Don Rodrigo de Buen Lozano had accomplished the feat.

‘No,’
said the girl. ‘It was in a dream.’

She told him about it: she was sitting in front of a window where heavy snow was falling, while one by one she ate the grapes from a cluster she held in her lap. Delaura felt a brush of dread. Trembling at the imminence of a final answer, he dared to ask: ‘How did it end?’

‘I’m afraid to tell you,’ said Sierva María.

He did not need to hear more. He closed
his eyes and prayed for her. When he finished, he was a changed man.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I promise you will soon be free and happy through the grace of the Holy Spirit.’

Bernarda had not known until then that Sierva María was in the convent. She found out almost by accident one night when she saw Dulce Olivia sweeping and straightening the house and thought she was one of her hallucinations.
In search of some rational explanation, she inspected the house room by room and in the process realized she had not seen Sierva María for some time. Caridad del Cobre told her the little she knew: ‘The Señor Marquis told us she was going very far away and we wouldn’t see her again.’ A light was burning in her husband’s bedroom, and Bernarda walked in without knocking.

He lay awake in the hammock,
surrounded by smoke from the cow dung burning over a slow fire to drive away mosquitoes. He saw the strange woman transfigured
by her silk robe, and he too thought he was seeing an apparition, for she looked pale and faded and seemed to come from a great distance. Bernarda asked about Sierva María.

‘She has not been with us for days,’ he said.

She understood this in the worst possible sense
and had to sit down on the closest chair to catch her breath.

‘You mean that Abrenuncio did what had to be done,’ she said.

The Marquis crossed himself.

‘God forbid!’

He told her the truth. He was careful to explain that he had not informed her at the time because, in accordance with her wishes, he wanted to treat her as if she had died. Bernarda listened, not blinking, with more attention
than she had granted him in the twelve years of their unfortunate life in common.

‘I knew it would cost me my life,’ said the Marquis, ‘but in exchange for hers.’

Bernarda sighed. ‘You mean that now our shame is public knowledge.’ She saw the glimmer of a tear on her husband’s eyelids, and a tremor rose from her belly. This time it was not death but the ineluctable certainty of what was bound
to happen sooner or later. She was not mistaken. The Marquis used his remaining strength to get out of the hammock, fell on his knees in front of her and burst into the harsh weeping of a useless old man. Bernarda capitulated because of the fire of male tears sliding across her lap through the silk. Despite her hatred for Sierva María, she confessed her relief at knowing she was alive.

‘I’ve
always understood everything except death,’ she said.

Once again she locked herself in her room with honey and cacao, and when she emerged two weeks later she was a walking corpse. The Marquis had been aware of travel preparations since early that morning and paid no attention to them. Before the sun grew hot, he saw Bernarda ride through the large courtyard gate on the back of a gentle mule,
followed by another carrying the baggage. She had often left in this way, without mule drivers or slaves, without saying goodbye to anyone or giving reasons for anything. But the Marquis knew that this time she was leaving and would not return, because along with her usual trunk she was taking the two urns full of pure gold that she had kept buried for years under her bed.

Sprawled in his hammock,
the Marquis again felt the terror that his slaves would attack him with knives and he forbade them to enter the house even during the day. And so when Cayetano Delaura came to see him by order of the Bishop, he had to push open the door and walk in uninvited, since no one responded to his loud knocking. The mastiffs were in a frenzy in their cages, but he pressed ahead. In the orchard, wearing
his Saracen djellaba and Toledan cap, the Marquis was taking his siesta in the hammock, his entire body covered by orange blossoms. Delaura observed him without waking him, and it was as if he were seeing Sierva María grown old, and broken by solitude. The Marquis woke and did not recognize him at first because of the patch over his eye. Delaura raised his hand, his fingers extended in a sign of
peace.

‘God
keep you, Señor Marquis,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Here,’ said the Marquis. ‘Rotting away.’

With a languid hand he brushed aside the cobwebs of his siesta and sat up in the hammock. Cayetano apologized for entering without being invited. The Marquis explained that no one bothered to answer the door because they had lost the habit of receiving visitors. Delaura spoke in a solemn
tone. ‘His Grace the Bishop, who is very preoccupied and suffering from asthma, has sent me as his representative.’ Once the initial formalities were over, he sat beside the hammock and went straight to the matter that burned inside him.

‘I wish to inform you that the spiritual health of your daughter has been entrusted to me,’ he said.

The Marquis thanked him and wanted to know how she was.

‘She is well,’ said Delaura, ‘but I want to help her be better.’

He explained the significance and methodology of exorcism. He spoke of the power given by Jesus to his disciples to expel unclean spirits from bodies and to heal sickness and disease. He recounted the Gospel parable of Legion and the 2,000 swine inhabited by demons. The fundamental task, however, was to establish whether Sierva María
was in reality possessed. He did not believe so, but he required the assistance of the Marquis to dispel any doubt. First of all, he said, he wanted to learn what his daughter was like before she entered the convent.

‘I do not know,’ said the Marquis. ‘I feel as if the more I know her the less I know her.’

He
was tormented by guilt for having abandoned her to her fate in the courtyard of the
slaves. To this he attributed her silences, which could last for months, her explosions of irrational violence, the astuteness with which she outwitted her mother when the girl put the same bell that had been hung around her wrist on the cats. The greatest obstacle to knowing her was her habit of lying for pleasure.

‘Like the blacks,’ said Delaura.

‘The blacks lie to us but not to each other,’
said the Marquis.

In her bedroom, Delaura could distinguish at a glance between the grandmother’s profusion of possessions and the new objects that belonged to Sierva María: the lifelike dolls, the wind-up ballerinas, the music boxes. On the bed, just as the Marquis had packed it, lay the little valise he had brought to the convent. The theorbo, covered with dust, had been flung into a corner.
The Marquis explained that it was an Italian instrument fallen into disuse and he exaggerated the girl’s ability to play it. In his distraction he began to tune the lute, and then not only played it from memory but sang the song he had sung with Sierva María.

It was a revelatory moment. The music told Delaura what the Marquis had not been able to say about his daughter. And the father was so
moved he could not finish the song. He sighed.

‘You cannot imagine how well the hat suited her.’

Delaura was infected by his emotion.

‘I can see you love her very much,’ he said.

‘You cannot imagine how much,’ said the Marquis. ‘I would give my soul to see her.’

Once
again Delaura felt that the Holy Spirit did not omit the slightest detail.

‘Nothing could be easier,’ he said, ‘if we can
prove she is not possessed.’

‘Speak to Abrenuncio,’ said the Marquis. ‘He has said from the beginning that Sierva is healthy, but only he can explain it.’

Delaura saw his dilemma. Abrenuncio could be providential, but talking to him might have undesirable implications. The Marquis seemed to read his mind.

‘He is a great man,’ the Marquis said.

Delaura shook his head in a meaningful gesture.

‘I am familiar with the files of the Holy Office,’ he said.

‘No sacrifice would be too great to have her back,’ insisted the Marquis. And since Delaura did not react in any way, he concluded: ‘I beg you, for the love of God.’

Delaura, his heart breaking, said, ‘I implore you not to make my suffering worse.’

The Marquis did not persist. He picked up the valise on the bed and asked Delaura to
take it to his daughter.

‘At least she will know that I am thinking of her,’ he said.

Delaura fled without saying goodbye. He put the valise under his cape, then wrapped himself in the cloak as protection against the driving rain. It took some time for him to realize that his inner voice was reciting verses of the song the Marquis had played on the theorbo. Lashed by the rain, he began to sing
aloud and repeated it from memory to the end. In the district of the artisans he turned to the left at the hermitage, still singing, and knocked at Abrenuncio’s door.

After
a long silence, he heard faltering steps and a voice only half awake.

‘Who is it!’

‘The law,’ said Delaura.

It was all he could think of to avoid shouting his own name. Abrenuncio opened the door, believing that representatives
of the government were really there, and did not recognize him. ‘I am the librarian for the diocese,’ said Delaura. The physician stepped aside to allow him through the dark entrance and helped him remove his soaked cape. In his characteristic fashion, Abrenuncio asked in Latin, ‘In what battle did you lose that eye?’

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