God's Fires Read online

  Monsignor’s face was slick with sweat, his mouth open. Bernardo had seen that same fearful concentration on those sent to the potro.

  “Monsignor? Will that be all?”

  Clutching his belly, Monsignor shuffled away and collapsed on a cot. “Yes.”

  Bernardo bowed and exited. He took the long way back to his rooms, moving silently along the colonnade walkway, past the monks’ cells. In an alcove near Mary’s chapel, by a niche dedicated to Jesus and the children, he stopped, held his journals to his chest, and praised God.

  For the choir was practicing for a society funeral to be held on the morrow; singing a requiem motet by Lassus. Bernardo closed his eyes.

  Everything fell away: Monsignor’s vanities, the polluted stench of modern politics, the weight of his own flesh. It seemed as if the pure voices of the children bore him up. His body lightened to unblemished spirit, his feet threatened to leave the ground.

  “Exore infantum,” he whispered. He dared not speak loudly, dared not move, lest someone notice. Prayer was meant for dark closets, although the shadowed niche of statue children would do.

  The voices drove splinters of ecstasy into him. He bled joy. “Deus, et lactentium,” he prayed, and it seemed as if beauty was piercing him, head to toe, with sweet yet unbearable pain. “Perfecisti laudem propter inimicos tuos.” Dropping to his knees, he clutched the edge of the niche, and wept.

  The demons wine and Exhaustion conspired against Pessoa. First they made him dizzy, then they caused him to be lost. When he finally stumbled onto the right path and arrived at Berenice Pinheiro’s house, he entered the wrong door and ran, belly first, into the fleecy flank of her burro. The animal snorted and stepped away.

  Inside, beyond reach of gibbous moon or starlight, Pessoa was struck blind. He groped through blackness until he touched the rough surface of the stucco wall. At last he spied a glow—a promising orange strip. Through a gap in her curtain, he could see the coals of her hearth fire.

  He waded through the straw, but impish Wine made him forget that Berenice’s house was a step higher than the stable. His toe caught on a flagstone, and he sprawled through the curtain into the neighboring room. The impact knocked the breath from him.

  A fast-moving shadow. Something thrashed his back. “Mary and Joseph!” he cried, crawling away.

  A soft voice asked, “You?”

  He rolled over. Bouquets of herbs dangled like bats from the rafters. The plain wooden cross he had given her hung dutifully above the fireplace. Berenice stood above him, broom at the ready. Her shift was thin. Through it he could see the glow of the hearth and the shadow of her small but luxuriant body: her legs—praised be—slightly parted.

  He reached out and caught what he could of her: her toe.

  “Ah, Berenice. You transport me. You lead me into temptation.”

  She slapped him with the broom. He sat up, coughing and sneezing dust.

  “You’re drunk,” she said, and knocked him down again.

  Before he could orient himself, she splashed him with icy water.

  “You dare come here stinking of the road, of that donkey?” Fury and determination made her his match. Tearing at buttons, she snatched his cassock over his head.

  He spat water and tried to get away. She followed him with the bucket and brush. She scoured as he begged for mercy.

  He upset a three-legged stool, fetched up in the corner, and put up his arms to shield his face. “You will give me a gripe, woman!”

  The soap smelled of ashes and tallow and dog rose. She scrubbed so hard, it stung.

  “Bathe once a week,” she was saying. “That’s a preventive, not the cause of illness. Didn’t your St. John lead his flock to wash in the river? All your Bible talks of cleansing, yet one would think Christians die from getting wet. I tell you, you stink. Your churches stink. You live in filth like pigs.”

  He manacled her tiny wrists with his hands. “Don’t say that.”

  Her body was so close that it was like sitting before the warmth of a fire. Her shift was damp, and it clung to the swell of her breasts, to the nubs of her nipples. He shivered, but cold water had done nothing to quench him. His pau stood at attention.

  She wrenched loose. “So stake me,” she said.

  He snatched up her shift. They tumbled together to the floor. Too much wine; too long a trip. Five thrusts, and he released, leaving her rubbing against him in frustration.

  He put his hand to her, but she pushed it away.

  “Not like that,” she said.

  “But my stake is soft. My fire is out.”

  “We’ll see.” She wrapped him in a blanket that smelled of lavender. She combed his wet hair. She put her arms around him and told him that she missed him.

  “Have you anything to eat?” he asked plaintively.

  They sat across from each other at her table. She served him a Judiazer’s meal: bread and salt, olive oil and herbs, hard cheese, purple-brown olives. She mixed his water with wine. As he ate he looked up, saw her looking back with eyes as remarkable as a Byzantine Madonna’s.

  He caressed her fingers, unintentionally anointing her with oil. “Dona Inez has seen glowing angels.”

  Berenice snorted. “Inez? That’s in doubt.”

  “Yes, granted. But tailor Magalhães speaks of crosses in the sky. Little Marta Castanheda has seen the Virgin. Do you hear rumors like that?”

  In her face he saw a quick flash of anger. “Who bothers to speak to a witch?” She went to kneel before the hearth, laying on fresh wood, poking at coals, her expression bleak.

  He dipped the rest of the bread into the salt, into the oil, and went to sit at her side. “I only ask,” he said, “because you told me that your angel glows.”

  Pine bark sizzled. A knot of oak caught with a blaze of yellow flame. “All angels glow,” she said. “Everything glows.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You never wanted to hear it before.”

  “I was an inquisitor before. Now I am simply a man with a question.”

  “He’s all I have,” she said, resting her cheek on her bent knees. “And he is enough. I love him without stint, without boundaries.”

  Pessoa failed to see it coming. Jealousy stabbed him in the back.

  “It was when I was sick,” she said. “I told you.”

  He chewed the tough, oiled bread. When he was away from her, it was the sight of her body he thought of first. Then the touch of her skin. Then the clean, strawflower scent of her hair. Yet when he dreamed of her, he awoke to the tastes of olive oil and spices. “Yes, I know. But I wasn’t listening at the time.”

  “You’re a pig, Manoel. If you listened more carefully, maybe you’d find that faith of yours.”

  He tore off another piece of bread and sucked oil from his fingers. “Start from the beginning.”

  “I died,” she said. Those large eyes were wistful. “And I went through a cave to another place. There was light there, all around.”

  “Inez says it hurts to look at it.”

  “Ha! Then I know she’s not seeing angels. Because the angel light would never hurt you, never. Yet it pierces things. When I was back in my room, the light turned everything gold: the table, the stool, the iron pot. A man was with me, and he was all made up of light, and he said, ‘You must go back now, Berenice.’ O, you see, Manoel? He knew my name. He called me by my name. And he looked me in the face, and his eyes were kind.”

  When she fell silent, he tore his gaze from the hearth. Her cheeks glistened, her chin quivered.

  “How long is his pau?” he asked, even though he feared the answer. How could he, a mortal, complete with a creature like that?

  She looked up. “What?”

  “The man of light. Does he have a long pau?”

  She slapped his shoulder. “He has no pau, idiot. He’s an angel.”

  “Doesn’t he lie with you, then?”

  “No, and no!” She hit him harder. She wasn’t crying anymore.

&nb
sp; “Well, if he doesn’t have a pau, Berenice, I don’t see the point of your fantasy. You had a fever dream—”

  “A fever dream? A fantasy’. Can a dream change you?”

  He shook his head. “You didn’t die, obviously. You’re here, aren’t you? You were lonely, so you’ve created a fantasy to keep you company.”

  “If it’s a fantasy, then why do I still see colored edges to things?”

  “The fever damaged your vision—”

  “O? Then how can I tell illness from the colors? Answer me that.”

  “You merely think you tell illness by colors. You’ve been tending the sick all your life. You see other signs, and don’t realize—”

  “You’re insufferable!” She shook him so furiously that she tore the blanket off him. “Little prick-proud man! Contentious, closed-ass Jesuit who thinks he knows the answer to every question!”

  They fought for possession of the blanket, and in the end, he let her win. “Damn you.” He got up. Cold, naked, he poured himself a mug of wine, drank it, then poured himself another. The cup was cracked. The glaze on her pottery was thin and cheap, the clay so poor that the texture of it set his teeth on edge. The cup nearly made him weep.

  He took a deep breath. Her house smelled of burro and herbs and rain. From the direction of the hearth came a rustle of clothing. He felt her approach.

  “I always thought I was ugly,” she said.

  He turned, surprised. “Why?”

  “God bless, Manoel! Because people don’t look at me.”

  “Don’t be silly. That’s only because they think you sour milk. Make them lose their babies. Give them running sores. It has nothing to do with being ugly.”

  Her jaw set: a dangerous expression. Why was she so annoyed? When they made love, he always looked her in the face. He never forgot.

  “The Church teaches that evil is ugly.”

  Ah. Now he understood. “I was taught to question, of course, but this is not to say that a bit of ecclesiastical simplification is wrong. Really, Berenice. Don’t look at me so. I didn’t make the doctrine, but it serves. In fact, I concede the Dominicans and Franciscans this one point: if ordinary men start to distrust their place in the universe and are not taught the Jesuit skill of answer, what can they do but become embittered? I imagine there are far more English with poor digestions than there are Portuguese. That’s what the Inquisition’s for.”

  “So the Inquisition was created to produce better digestion.”

  Her gaze was frighteningly direct. He yearned to look away, but didn’t dare. “Well, I paraphrase, but…”

  A quick and entirely unexpected move. She grabbed him by the pau. He froze, fearing that he had been mistaken all these years, that reason was wrong, superstition valid. He was terrified suddenly that she was a witch with enough supernatural strength to rip his pau out by the roots.

  “Tell me I’m pretty,” she said.

  “What?”

  Her dark eyes didn’t waver. Her hand moved up and down his shaft. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

  “Well, of course you know…” But perhaps she didn’t. “Berenice,” he said softly, and touched her cheek. “You’re really very…” She dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth. He gasped and closed his eyes. The fire was suddenly lit, his stake ready. “God. God.”

  Another greedy pull, and she let go. Laughing, she led him to her pallet. “Now,” she said.

  Soon ecstasy made her cry out. She clung to him tight. And when he, too, was done, they lay exhausted together, her stroking his back. He drank more wine, although he knew he shouldn’t. The wine made him drowsy, and it seemed like a dream when she said, “I see colors in you, Manoel. Blue like the sky, for questions. A buried golden treasure trove of faith. And a line of red lust at your edges, just for me.”

  He drifted in the slow current of her voice. Bewitched, he fell asleep in her touch. Hours before dawn, she awakened him, kissed him, and told him it was time to go.

  DAY 2

  Bernardo awakened with a start, thinking he heard the matins bell, knowing he was late. He slipped out of his nest in the covers and into the numbing chill of the corridor. Standing unshod on the stone floor, he saw that the monastery was quiet, the votive candles in a niche across the way standing guard. His frightened heart slowed.

  Deo gratias. Only a dream.

  Picking up his sandals, he scurried barefoot down the corridor, making no noise in passing. Inside Mary’s chapel he bunched his habit so that belly and groin were bare, but the back of his legs covered.

  He prostrated. The cold was always a shock. His teeth chattered. The floor sucked the heat from him and left his heart quivering in his chest. His pau shriveled.

  Not that lust plagued him. Bernardo did not lie with women as Father José Renato was wont to do. And he did not seek out other men, as Friar Coelho. Nor did he feel the need to abuse himself under the blankets, as did Jorge or Jerónimo.

  “Judica me, Deus,” he whispered.

  He lay the way he had when he had accepted his vows, cheek to floor, feet together, arms outstretched, as if seeking crucifixion from the stones. His cock shrank more. His testicles tried to burrow into the warmth of his pelvis. And as the engine of lechery diminished, holy ecstasy came awake. A spot at the root of him tingled.

  “Emitte lucem tu—”

  Wait. Was that a sound in the hall? Bernardo caught his breath. Someone would walk in and discover him here. He listened, his pulse racing. Mortification should be secret between penitent and God. Not loud and brash like Friar Carlos’s self-scourging.

  The monastery kept its silence. “Et veritatem tuam…” He closed his eyes and the sensation in his groin spread. It melted ice. Contraction became aching, infinite expansion.

  Knowledge didn’t cause the Fall as Monsignor believed. Monsignor was a modem man, one who believed that doubt was more evil than lust. Bernardo knew better. Just as Eve led Adam into temptation, women tricked men. He had seen strong schoolmates weep for love; seen soldiers come raving back from war, their cocks rotted from the English disease, their minds gone. That was the consequence of sin.

  “…ipse me deduxerunt.” His breath came faster. His mouth opened. The tingle shot upward, impaling him with joy. “In montem sanctum tuam.” He bit his tongue to keep from crying aloud.

  He arose, steadying himself on a pew. Bone and muscle hummed as if he were the tuning fork, and God the music master.

  Bernardo would forgo breakfast and his midday meal today in penance for awakening late. Before retiring, he would say ten Pater Nosters and ten Ave Marias. Lust was not his sin, nor gluttony, nor pride, nor greed, nor sloth. He was guilty of small transgressions. The kind one could always make right.

  The matins bell rang.

  He genuflected. On his way from the chapel, he paused at the Madonna and Child. When he was sure no one was watching, he rose on tiptoes and kissed the rosebud lips of the baby Jesus.

  Cats mewed, somewhere farther away, roosters crowed. And much too close for ear’s comfort, Soares sang. Pessoa lay, indisposed by yesterday’s wine, his face turned to the wall. He tried not to listen. The song was of a maiden who jumped the fire on St. John’s eve.

  “Lavender thistles, thistles, thistles…” A loud resonant gong sounded. Soares had dropped the iron pot, ostensibly by accident. Pessoa knew it was a hint, and he didn’t move. If he stayed still, his head wouldn’t throb. Soares would think him dead, and go away.

  “…under her pillow, oh, yes, her pillow.”

  Pessoa remembered the end of the song. Instead of dreaming of her future husband on St. John’s eve, the girl saw herself wrapped in the arms of Death. A sad ditty. Pessoa couldn’t help picturing little Marta Castanheda as the maiden.

  “She knelt by her be-e-e-ed, and said her rosary as any good girl should.”

  Cats meowed discordantly. Pessoa’s head throbbed, a guilty sentence handed down by last night’s wine. He tried to remember what day it was, but his attention wand
ered.

  “On St. John’s eve,” Soares sang.

  A litany marched through Pessoa’s consciousness, keeping time with the headache: Lacrimosa dies illa… What day was it? He’d left Montemuro two days before. No. Three days before.

  “On St. John’s e-e-e-eve…”

  And three days before was … what? O. Tuesday, the day of Montemuro’s fair. His head hurt from thinking, and so he let his mind ramble again… . Marta Castanheda opening her almond eyes, her face wearing the languid look of a woman with her suitor. Pessoa imagined waking with his arms around her, imagined himself smiling back.

  Qua resurg—

  Pessoa’s heart stuttered. The requiem. That’s what he was reciting. He nearly bolted from his cot. The rectory was silent now. Soares must be standing behind him, waiting, probably praying that he arise.

  “Manoel? One of my flock has brought us fresh bread and Spanish cherries.”

  The requiem. What did that mean? Pessoa was not a superstitious man, but still, it seemed ominous to awaken thinking of the requiem, and imagining himself as Marta Castanheda’s Death.

  “Manoel?” Soares’s voice was louder. “Manoel, please.”

  Pessoa rolled over, hiking the blanket over his shoulder. The straw mattress rustled. Leather and wood squeaked.

  Soares peered at him, concerned. “You look afright.”

  “Mm. A touch of gripe. A bit too much of the road.”

  “Ay!” The old Franciscan lifted his arms skyward. “I warned you not to look! Now you’ll be impotent. You’ll have hemorrhoids and strange fevers.”

  Pessoa ran his tongue over his teeth. His mouth felt mossy. He closed his eyes, and felt himself drifting off. “That’s right,” he muttered. “Sleep in.”

  “You can’t! I’ve laid out your vestments. The Mass has already been announced. Aren’t you going to be co-celebrant?”

  Miserere nobis. The last Thursday of the month. Time to read the Edicts.

  Pedro wasn’t in his rooms. Afonso looked for him under the bed and behind a tapestry of the victory at Batalha. “Pedro?” Arms out, fists clenched, nightshirt flapping, he ran his brother’s room in circles until he was dizzy and his breath came quick. “Pedro! Stop hiding!”