Knowledge of Angels Page 6

  ‘What is that?’ he was saying. ‘I have never heard that: “nothing is forbidden to the pure in heart?” That is what he told me.’

  ‘That’s antinomianism, I think,’ said Prebend Pere.

  ‘What’s antinomianism?’

  ‘A heresy. A deadly and recurring one, Brother.’

  ‘Holy Mary protect us all,’ said the porter, crossing himself.

  Severo, reading the evening office, heard something – the unusual footfalls and agitated voices. Like fluttered feathers in a pigeon loft, the barely audible sounds wafted a sense of something wrong. Then, knocking once, Beneditx entered his cell. A very unhushed angry voice was raised at once. The canon residentiary, saying, ‘How dare you bring a . . . a . . . to the cardinal’s private quarters!’

  ‘She is quite safe,’ said Beneditx. ‘I have not brought her to yours!’ And pushing the woman into Severo’s cell, he slammed the door in the canon’s face and slid the bolt, rattling it noisily. She leaned against the wall just within the door, trembling. Beneditx put the bundle of rags down on the table among Severo’s books, whereupon it emitted a faint and bleating cry.

  Severo, who till that moment had remained kneeling, with his breviary open before him, rose. Beneditx, leaning over his bundle, was unwrapping a baby. ‘Come and look,’ he said. The baby was very new. Its legs were drawn up to its chest, and its feet were crossed over. Severo, astonished, reached out a finger and touched the sole of one tiny wrinkled foot. The toes flexed upwards at his touch. The babe’s arms waved aimlessly, now it was unwrapped, like fronds in a gentle wind, until, its hand encountering Beneditx’s finger, it held tight, all five of its curled fingers together grasping one of Beneditx’s to the first joint.

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’ said Severo.

  ‘That they could be so small? They are grown considerably before the parents bring them for baptism,’ said Beneditx.

  ‘A marvel, indeed,’ said Severo. The babe smelt of milk and sourness.

  ‘Look at her eyes,’ Beneditx told him. ‘What do you see?’

  Her eyes were dark. They seemed large for so small a visage. As Severo leaned over her she kicked and almost smiled. But the swimming vagueness of her eyes did not change. They were like windows to the night sky, or the deeps of the sea. Beneditx said, ‘Later, they focus on the world. Later, they see the visible universe around them. But what do you see there now?’

  ‘Infinity,’ said Severo.

  ‘At first they see only God.’

  ‘Yes, Beneditx. But I will show you another thing. Come with me.’

  The sun had descended, and dusk had crept over Ciudad while the little scene in Severo’s cell was played. Now, as the two friends stepped on to the balcony, the evening star shone like a bright candle above the lemon tree’s fragrant branches, and the garden below them was a pool of shadow, in which gradually, as they stepped away from the light of Severo’s open door, their eyes distinguished the fountain, the path, the bench. Severo led the way down the stair into the dark garden. With Beneditx close behind him he crossed the garden and opened the little wicket-gate at the far end. Beyond was a yard, within a high curtain wall, cluttered with gear – barrels, carts, tools, a stack of roofing tiles, and blocks of masonry waiting for the repair of some quoin of the great building. Beneditx blinked at the dim obstructions.

  Severo called, ‘Jaime?’

  A voice answered at once from the mason’s shack, ‘Holiness?’

  ‘Have you offered food tonight?’

  ‘Not yet, Holiness. I was waiting till darkness.’

  ‘Try now. Can we have a lantern?’

  ‘Best not, Holiness. It is so hated . . .’

  ‘Very well, then. Open the cage and fetch the food.’

  At that moment someone high up above them in the prebends’ house lit lamps, and the glow from the window cast a glancing and indirect light into the yard. The youth called Jaime departed by a door into the bowels of the building, and there was silence. Then there was a scuttling sound from behind a tilted cart. Severo put a hand on Beneditx’s sleeve, as though to restrain him from movement. Something ran out from behind the cart. It ran on all fours with a lolloping movement. It lurched from side to side of the narrow yard, as though looking for a way out. Beneditx thought of a dog – a mangy dog. It squatted in the darkness by the stack of tiles and urinated. The warm stench reached him. Then it came towards him. He moved, suddenly, stepping backwards, saying, ‘Severo . . .’

  The beast snarled at him. It growled ferociously and bared its teeth, which showed white in the faint illumination from the window. Then suddenly it turned tail and ran, retreating to the furthest corner of the yard, where it turned about again and faced them. He could see nothing but the blue glint of its eyes, glaring at him from near the ground, as once he had seen those of a fox cornered in his father’s barn, visible only by the twin mirrored glint of the lantern.

  Jaime returned, bearing a trencher with three bowls.

  ‘What have you brought?’ asked Severo.

  ‘The same, Holiness. Milk. Stewed beef and vegetables. Raw meat and bones.’

  ‘Try.’

  Jaime put down the bowls in the dust where the light of the window fell brightest. Then he stepped back into the shadows. They did not have long to wait. The beast crept forward. It sniffed at the bowl of milk, lowered its shaggy head, and drank, lapping like a dog. It sniffed at the second bowl and left it untouched. It sniffed the third bowl only for a second, before lowering its head and bolting the food, seizing the meat between its teeth, raising its head and swallowing rapidly with convulsive movements of its upper body. Then, knocking the bowl away, it took the bone in its mouth, and ran away with it out of sight.

  ‘Bring a lantern now,’ said Severo.

  By its light Beneditx saw a strange sort of bald and flat-faced dog sitting under the cart, holding the bone down with its front paws and rubbing it on the ground to loosen the scraps from it. It tore at the adhering scraps with its teeth, and though it stopped feeding briefly to snarl at Jaime when he came too near it with the lantern, it had no attention to spare from its food. Beneditx saw also, in the swinging lamplight, the face of the cardinal’s kennel boy, taut with some storm of feeling – fear? loathing? – and moist as with sweat or tears.

  ‘Come away,’ said Severo, pulling on his sleeve. ‘Jaime will lock her in again.’

  ‘A bitch of some kind?’ asked Beneditx, mystified, standing again in the garden, in the fountain of fragrance released by the lemon tree into the night air, under a thickening plethora of stars.

  Severo spoke gravely, even gently, but with a shake in his voice. ‘That also, you see, Beneditx, is an unbaptized child.’

  Severo’s cell, when the two men re-entered it, was full of the frantic raucous sound of the babe. Its face was puckered and red, and it was emitting a hacking, desperate cry, at full lung. The woman, very agitated, was rocking and shushing it. Of course, thought Severo, ruefully, she is locked in.

  ‘I’m sorry, Holiness, sorry, but she is so hungry . . .’

  ‘Feed her, then,’ he said.

  ‘May I? Here?’

  ‘Certainly. The poor thing is in urgent need, from the sound of her.’

  Severo spoke calmly, but he seemed greatly taken aback when the woman, instead of bringing a beaker of milk from her bundle, sat down on the floor and, blushing deeply, uncovered her breast and put the babe to her nipple. The babe shook its head from side to side for a second and latched on hard. The crying ceased abruptly, and in the sweet silence that followed Severo could hear funny little sniffling and sucking sounds. Once, as if to punish its mother for her tardy response, the babe released the nipple and uttered a single afterthought of a cry. A tiny fountain of milk spattered its face; pinching her swelling breast between finger and thumb, the woman guided the nipple again into the urgent little mouth. The child’s tiny hand lay delicately couched on the white cushion of flesh, with its marbling of blue veins, and as the two men watc
hed, a sense of ease slowly infused the process before them. The child sucked less violently, and its lids drooped and opened again. And the mother’s face, so bitten and hard-lined and worldly, took on an expression of angelic calm and joy. Then the babe fell suddenly asleep, and the woman pulled her clothes to cover herself again and sat still.

  ‘What is your name?’ Severo asked her, speaking quietly.

  ‘Maria, Holiness.’

  ‘The babe’s name?’

  ‘Felicia.’

  ‘And the father’s name?’

  ‘I do not know, Holiness.’

  ‘He left without telling you his name?’

  ‘It was Pere, or Felip, but they both deny it.’

  ‘Heaven help us! How will you live?’

  ‘I am a gypsy, Holiness. We know how to live. Most of us never marry.’

  ‘And when you come to die? What then?’

  ‘We call for a priest. All is forgiven us.’

  ‘You do very wrong. That is a wicked heresy.’

  Beneditx said, ‘Severo, I promised her if she lent me the babe no harm would come to them.’

  ‘I have no other mind than yours,’ said Severo. ‘Maria, what is your heart’s desire, in all the world?’

  ‘A blue silk shawl, Holiness.’

  ‘And for the child?’

  ‘Enough to eat for seven years. That makes a child grow beautiful.’

  Severo nodded. ‘May I hold her?’ he asked. He stooped and took the babe from its mother’s arms, while she got to her feet. He reached for a little flask of water that stood beside his bed. The babe in the crook of his arm burped, and its parted lips brimmed with a trickle of creamy regurgitated milk. Severo poured a drop of the water on its downy head, and said, ‘Ego baptiso te Felicia, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Amen. Will three gold pistoles feed her for seven years?’

  ‘Easily, Holiness.’

  ‘And a fourth would buy a blue silk shawl?’

  The woman nodded. Severo took a paper and wrote. He gave it to the woman. ‘Bring this to the sacristy in the cathedral tomorrow, and the treasurer will pay you four gold pistoles. The child is my god-daughter; you may bring her to me for a dowry, but only if she is to be married at an altar. Do you understand?’

  ‘Thank you, Holiness.’

  ‘And, Maria, sometimes pray for me. Good night.’

  Beneditx led Maria all the way back to the gatehouse, smiling sweetly at scowling faces till the outer gate was closed on the woman, and order was restored.

  Returning to Severo’s cell, he asked, ‘Have you ever seen that before?’

  ‘Never,’ said Severo.

  ‘Nor I, my friend. Or, rather, only in paintings. Paintings of the Virgin.’

  ‘There is such a painting in Piedmont. I saw it when I travelled as a young man. It shows that little jet of milk as the child turns its head . . . I took it to be an allegory, a representation of the flow of human kindness from mother to child. It never occurred to me . . .’

  ‘That it could be real?’

  ‘That it could be true in the flesh. But then, I would have doubted the possibility of either an atheist or a wolf-child. Come to me in the morning and let us talk in earnest.’

  7

  Every window of every house in the Camino sa Eglesia was shuttered against the heat. The children were indoors, the cats had retreated from the sunlit to the shaded doorsteps to sleep, the flowers with which the citizens beautified their steps and windowsills wilted in the blazing light. Behind the houses were benches under the citrus trees, under the canopies of vines, where usually it was pleasant to sit out the siesta in a dappled shade, with glimpses of the towering mountains and little gusts of mountain air, but nobody sat in any such garden now; the broken shards of sunlight fingering through the leaves were fierce and sharp enough to burn. In the entire town of Santanya only one person was about, and that was Josefa, the daughter of Taddeo Arta, the cordwainer, and she, half-blinded with sweat from under the brim of her hat, was hoeing the lettuce plot and spreading manure from the donkey byre at the far end of the garden, out of the shade of the trees.

  When she had done, she splashed her burning face with water from the pump, washed her hands, slipped off her sandals, and went as softly as she could indoors. Not softly enough; Margalida heard her, and called out at once, ‘Josefa? I told you to see to the garden!’

  ‘It is done, Margalida,’ said Josefa.

  ‘Bring me a goblet of water!’ Margalida called.

  Josefa returned to the pump. She filled a jug and carried it to the kitchen. She poured the water into a goblet, and went slowly and sulkily up the stairs with it. She entered the bedroom reluctantly. Margalida was lying stretched out on the bed, wearing only a thin shift, unlaced at the neck. Her hair spread lavishly over the pillows, the very pillows on which Josefa’s mother had tossed feverishly only a year since. The little painted picture of Sant Catalida which had been propped as long as Josefa could remember beside her mother’s bed had gone now, replaced by perfume bottles and a trinket box.

  ‘There is a pile of sheets in need of pressing,’ said Margalida, without moving, as Josefa put down the water. ‘Go and do that.’

  ‘I am going to rest,’ said Josefa. ‘I will iron when the heat eases, later.’

  ‘You will go now, at once, and do just as I tell you,’ said Margalida, opening her limpid eyes, and adopting a furious tone, half masked by sleepiness.

  ‘Even a dog has a siesta,’ said Josefa.

  ‘I will tell your father!’ said Margalida. But for once this threat failed to work. Josefa climbed the stairs to her room, stamping on the wooden treads so that Margalida could not fail to realize that she had gone upstairs, and not downstairs to more work.

  But in the safety of her room she did not lie down. Instead, she sat in the little rocking chair that had belonged to her mother and that she had rescued just in time, when Margalida would have sold it to a passing tinker, and sat rocking herself and thinking. Her face was still burning from her exertions in the heat, but that would cool and fade faster than her bitterness at her stepmother.

  Margalida did indeed complain to Taddeo when he returned at dusk. Josefa, standing at the head of the stairs, heard the voluble flow of the stepmother’s voice and the low rumble, indecipherable, of her father’s replies. Sighing, he sent one of her little brothers to fetch her, and attempted to sort it out. He sat in his chair at the end of the family table, and she stood facing him from the other end.

  ‘What is this I hear?’

  Josefa made no answer.

  ‘If you have quarrelled with Margalida, you must apologize.’

  ‘Father, am I a daughter in this house, or a servant?’

  ‘A daughter, Josefa, of course, but . . .’

  ‘Then why must I obey her every order, like a drudge? Why must I work through the heat of the day, while she lies at ease?’

  ‘You are to do your share. You are to obey her, because she stands in the position of mother to you . . .’

  ‘Father, she is barely three years older than I, and besides . . .’

  ‘She is my wife, Josefa. You must respect her.’

  ‘And besides, if a mother gives orders it is with kindness. What mother sends a daughter to work in the sun at midday?’

  ‘Did she order you to work in the heat, today? What work was asked of you?’

  ‘Hoeing and manuring the garden patch. At noon. She did not tell you that? She did not tell you that she was taking a siesta, herself?’

  Taddeo frowned. ‘I expect you misunderstood,’ he said, and then saw with distress that his daughter’s face was covered with flowing tears, although she made no sound.

  ‘There, there,’ he said. ‘I will speak to Margalida. But if you two cannot get along, what is to be done?’

  ‘You must find me a husband, Father,’ said Josefa.

  ‘Well, but that would not be easy! You are very young, and what with the expenses of the wedding and the new r
ope walk . . . in short I need time to amass a sufficient dowry . . .’

  ‘If I am a little younger than Margalida, I have twenty times more sense!’ said Josefa. ‘And you took her without a dowry!’

  ‘That’s different!’ said Taddeo, angry now.

  ‘Why? How different?’

  ‘Because she is as beautiful as a flower, and you are ugly,’ he said.

  The only mirror in the house was in the parental bedroom. At that moment Margalida was clashing pans in the kitchen, pretending to be engaged with the evening meal, which Josefa had cooked and made ready before her father’s return. She left him without a word and marched straight to it. She drew breath, like one plunging into cold water, and then confronted herself through the misty and flecked medium of the glass. She stared for a long time. It had never occurred to her that she was ugly, because she had been tenderly loved, and as clearly as the boys looked like their father, she looked like her mother. But she saw it now, in the light of her ruthless stare. A long and bony face stared coldly at her out of the glass, with flared nostrils and red-rimmed eyes, like a startled horse. She had cut her hair short as a sign of mourning when her mother died, and it had grown again coarse and spiky like a bush of thyme. Looking, she learned despair.

  Later, lying close by his wife, but not touching, because of the heat, Taddeo asked her, ‘Did you really send Josefa to work outside at noon?’

  ‘It wasn’t so hot,’ said Margalida. ‘You are judging by how it was on the quays, where you were, but up here there was air from the mountains. It was almost cool, in fact. In fact, I thought the air would do her good . . .’

  ‘Couldn’t you ask her to do something and leave her to choose for herself when to do it?’

  ‘You promised me I should be mistress in the house and have all things at my disposing,’ said Margalida. ‘You promised. Now she defies me.’

  ‘She asked me to find her a husband.’

  ‘Now that’s a good idea! I would be rid of her, and if it’s what she wants . . .’

  ‘It would be some time before I could find a dowry for her. Nobody will take her without a good one. And we would need to stint ourselves to find it.’