TWENTY-TWO
As soon as we were out of sight of the pulqueria, I stepped up beside the mule carrying the two frays. I wanted to learn more of what I'd heard, so I boldly asked my question.
I knew what a woman's teat was. Many india and africana women worked naked to the waist in the fields or suckled their babies with their bare breasts on the street. But I had never seen a witch and didn't know what their teats looked like.
"What does a witch's teat look like?" I asked.
The young fray, Juan, made the sign of the cross and mumbled a prayer as Fray Antonio scowled at me. "Your curiosity will someday bring you trouble," he predicted.
"I fear it's already here," I mumbled, but quickly shut my mouth when the fray glared at me.
"There is much that you should know," Fray Antonio said, "to protect yourself from those who threaten you along life's path. There is evil in this world, and good men must fight it. Sadly, the institution the Church created to fight evil commits unspeakable atrocities in the name of our Lord."
"Antonio, you must not—" Fray Juan started.
"Quiet. I do not bow to ignorance as you do. The matter was mentioned before the boy, and he should know the workings of the Inquisition if he is going to survive in this world." His tone implied that my survival was not preordained.
He rode for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "You will discover, my young friend, that women's private parts are constructed differently from ours."
I almost laughed. Little india girls routinely ran naked on the streets. I would have to be blind not to have noticed that they lacked a pene. What would the fray say if I told him of my introduction to the alcalde's wife?
Once again the fray hesitated, weighing his words.
"When the Holy Office takes a person to their dungeons, they are stripped naked, and their bodies are minutely examined by inquisitors for signs of the devil."
"What are the signs of the devil?" I asked.
"The devil knows his own," Fray Juan says, "and places his mark on them. It may be in the form of a mold, a scar, the way wrinkles are formed on the skin—"
Fray Antonio scoffed and the younger fray gave him a pained look.
"You must not jeer at the Inquisition," Juan said. "Your blasphemous attitude is well known and someday they will remind you of that."
"I answer each day to God," Fray Antonio said. "Where Satan's signs reside, I know not. As for this beast, Osorio," the fray's voice faltered with emotion as he spoke the name, "in examining naked women, he delights in peering between their legs and tormenting an appendage that is, in loving hands, their source of joy."
"Uno poco pene?" I timorously asked.
"No, not like that possessed of men. Something different. This inquisitor, in his ignorance, for he had never looked closely between a woman's legs before nor bedded with one, had heard of such a mushroom from other ignorant frays. These fools believed that what was found between the woman's legs was a teat, conceived, then suckled by Satan."
I gasped, remembering the little mushroom between the legs of the alcalde's wife that I had pressed with my tongue. "What—what if a man touches this teat? Will he die?"
"He becomes possessed by the devil!" Fray Juan exclaimed.
¡Ay de mí!
"Absurdo!" Fray Antonio cursed. "That is nonsense. All women have the pleasure bump between their legs."
"No!" Juan said.
"Even our Virgin Mother had it."
Fray Juan quickly muttered a prayer and crossed himself.
"What I'm saying, Chico Bastardo, is that what Osorio found and reported as Satan's sign, a witch's teat, is God-given, something every woman possesses."
"It must have been terrible for the poor woman," I said.
"It was worse than terrible," Fray Antonio said. "When she did not confess, Osorio tortured her to death."
"Por Dios!" I said. "What was his punishment?"
"Punishment? There is none. God knows His own, they say. The woman is officially absolved, and she goes to heaven."
We walked in silence.
"Antonio," Fray Juan finally said, shaking his head, "your heretical opinions will one day bring the Inquisition down on the boy as well as yourself."
Fray Antonio shrugged. "All right, explain it to him in your own way."
Fray Juan said, "When our glorious monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, assumed the United Crown of Spain and captured the last Moorish strongholds on the peninsula, the land was heavily populated by Jews and Infidels. They threatened the foundation of our society. Our Most Catholic Monarchs created the Holy Office of the Inquisition to counter their demonic influence. Ultimately, it was decreed that Jews had to convert to the Christian faith or leave the country. At almost the same time that Cristóbal Colon—the great discoverer of the New World—was sailing from Spain to discover the New World, tens of thousands of Jews were forced out of the country and into the Islamic lands of North Africa."
"Torquemada, our Inquisitor General, introduced torture and confiscation of the victim's wealth as the means of conversion," Fray Antonio pointed out. "In other words, tens of thousands of Jews lost everything to Church and Crown, whether they converted or not."
Fray Juan shot Antonio a dark look and continued. "Muhammad's followers were also forced to convert or leave Spain."
"Violating the terms of their surrender," Fray Antonio said. "In any event, their property was likewise confiscated."
"From this time on," Juan persisted, "a new threat arose, the problem of false conversos—Jews who falsely subscribed to Christian beliefs, the ones we call marranos,and Moors who swear false allegiance to Christ, people we call moriscos."
I recognized the word as meaning "little Moors."
"To stop these false conversos from spreading their evil ideas and Satanic rites, the the Church ordered the Holy Office to find the wrongdoers—"
"—through torture—"
"—and punish them."
"Burning them at the stake in front of the entire city," Fray Antonio said.
"Cristo, my son," Fray Juan said with weary patience, "auto-da-fé means 'act of faith,' and that is what it is. For those who repent and confess their guilt, the punishment is almost painless."
Fray Antonio snorted. "The victims are tied to the stake and wood piled around them. If they repent, they are garroted before they are burned."
I, too, had never understood the auto-da-fé. I had read the Gospels many times in the hospice and never saw suggestions that we burn people alive.
"The Inquisition, which is run entirely by men who have never slept with a woman, or who at least are forbidden to, is conducting a holy war against women," Fray Antonio said. He waved away the objections of Juan. "They accomplish this through what they call controlling devil worship among witches. Dominican monks have made passionate sermons in villages and towns, describing the demonic practices of witches, sowing a belief in the black arts. Because of these sermons, ignorant people see Satan's hand in everything. They report their neighbors, sometimes their own family members, to the Inquisition for the most trivial reasons.
"Once a woman is arrested, the inquisitors take as their Bible a book called The Hammer of Witches,which professes to teach one to recognize witches. They take the women to their dungeons, strip and search them for Satanic signs, even to the point of cutting off their hair.
"The inquisitors begin with simple questions from The Hammer of Witches.However, there are no correct answers, so the prisoners can never talk their way out of an accusation, even with the truth. A woman might be asked, "Do you believe in witches?" If she says yes, she has knowledge of witchcraft and is thus a witch herself. And if she says no, she is lying for the devil and is also tortured.