The Scroll of Seduction Read online

  Fortunately, Philippe has rejected this idea. Knowing how stormy the Cantabrian Sea is, it seems inconceivable that my parents could believe their plan takes my safety into consideration. It is not my welfare but their priorities which concern them. And this stark reality, this doggedness that my parents exhibit, is what scares Philippe–though he may also be worried that I will confess how restricted he has me in Flanders and how anxious I feel. I don’t know. I feel like a wood chip tossed into a nest of termites. I am wracked by doubts. I hate myself, and my hatred either erodes my foundations or boils over, seeking revenge. On more than one occasion, my hands have reached out and tried to wound him while we were making love. I have sunk my nails into his arms and back, I have had orgasms imagining his lifeless face. But just when I want to give in to my homicidal fantasies, he puts his tongue to my sex and I forget my rancor and my futile plans, as my mind is lapped by Pentecostal flames. With just one thrust, Eros conquers my hatred and I give in like a gentle dove awakening after having dreamed itself a hawk.

  “It’s bizarre, isn’t it? Why would Philippe refuse to go to Spain to be named official heir to the throne?”

  “Philippe was no fool. And his advisors were shrewd indeed. They knew that the Catholic Monarchs would find a way to compromise his loyalty, that they’d pressure him into giving up his flirtation with France in the interest of strengthening his role as Spanish heir. Philippe suspected the Catholic Monarchs would try to keep Charles there, so they could educate him as they saw fit. And in order to offset his in-laws’ ambitions and their influence, the archduke hatched his own plan. He left the children with his father in Austria, and made sure that on the way to Spain, he stopped for a visit–with all the pomp and ceremony imaginable–in France. That way he could go to Spain, but en route he could also calm his friend Louis XII’s concerns, reaffirming Flemish loyalty to France. You have to realize that in just a few years, Spain had become a great empire, and like all empires, it had expansionist pretensions that its neighbors were well aware of. And the Flemish boasted that they were more civilized and learned than Spaniards. When Juana got to Coudenberg Palace in Brussels, she couldn’t believe the magnificence and beauty of the chambers. Spanish palaces were more like fortresses built for monarch warriors. Until they conquered Granada, Fernando and Isabel’s itinerant court slept in tents if they had to. Whatever the Reconquest required.”

  “So when did Juana and Philippe finally travel to Spain?”

  “A year later. Juana’s third child, Isabel, was born on July 16, 1501, and in January 1502, after a short stay in France, they arrived in Spain.”

  “Juana didn’t waste any time getting pregnant.” I smiled.

  “She was an extraordinarily strong, healthy woman for her time. Are you tired? If you like, we can leave it here for today.”

  Manuel scooted closer and looked at me tenderly, brushing the hair out of my eyes.

  “I just feel sad for Juana. Not knowing whether or not someone loves you is something that makes me think of my mother’s letters to Isis, where you can feel the desperation and insecurity in her tone. It’s strange, isn’t it? I have the impression that it was uncertainty that made both my mother and Juana feel so weak. If either of them had known for certain that their husbands didn’t love them, I think they probably would have been stronger. But that element of doubt–the idea that whether or not their men loved them depended on how they acted–was deadly for them. Maybe their love was too passionate, too devoted.”

  “That’s pretty common,” Manuel said. “Don’t you think it could ever happen to you?”

  “With you?”

  “Maybe,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

  “I doubt it. To begin with, you’re already in love with another woman.” I smiled maliciously.

  “And who would that be?” he asked, smiling too.

  “Juana, obviously,” I said calmly. “I know you’re in love with her.”

  “What if I were? You’d have nothing to fear. She’s a ghost; she no longer exists.” He grinned.

  “Ghosts do live, in a way. I have proof of that now. Anyway, she protects me, I think, makes sure I don’t fall head over heels.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

  “Why, would you want me to be madly in love too?”

  “Juana was not mad and my question was hypothetical. Anyway, I can tell you’re tired. Let’s go visit my aunt Águeda; you’ll like her.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Aunt Águeda was a tall, big-boned woman in her seventies with bleach-blond bouffant hair. She had the same blue eyes and pale skin as Manuel, though she hid her pallor under a layer of pinkish makeup. She must have been pretty when she was young. She still was, actually. She was wearing blue slip-on shoes and a gray knit outfit: matching knee-length skirt and cardigan. A gold chain with a cross hung from her neck, and she wore earrings and a thick, gold bracelet with coins dangling from it–Roman coins, she told me, when she noticed I was staring at them.

  To get to the house you had to go through a gate on calle Cid–a tiny, shady lane between Serrano and Paseo de Recoletos, close to the National Library–and then walk through a garden. It was a beautiful Castilian-style corner mansion that had about it the air of a shipwrecked boat. The patina of time, humidity, and moss had stained the lower edges of the outside walls. A huge chestnut tree stood on one side of the house, and the stairway that had at one time led up to the main entrance was now blocked off by huge pots of half-dead plants. I thought the house was like an ancient lady clinging to a world where she no longer had a place.

  Manuel led me down a stone path, and we went in through what once would have been the service entrance. After the bright, midday light outside, it was like venturing into a chilly cave. At first I couldn’t see anything, but when my eyes adjusted to the darkness I noticed a pair of high-backed chairs and a round, marble-top table with baluster-turned legs. The walls were ocher colored, and off to the right there was a coatrack with three or four coats, several pairs of winter boots, and an umbrella holder. Manuel walked up a staircase against the wall of a large kitchen with shelves full of utensils. There was a window that looked out over the garden with sunlight filtering in through the branches of the chestnut tree, and beside it sat a solid wooden table with a few chairs. We walked from there into a magnificent salon decorated with crystal chandeliers and furnished with Castilian-style leather chairs, beautiful tables with elaborately carved legs, braziers, and other chairs with bronze appliqués. The air of decay visible on the outside of the house was nowhere to be found in here. It was obvious that its furnishings dated from long ago but had been lovingly preserved. Everything was clean, the wood and bronze were polished and sunlight was kept at bay, the rooms were dim, the muted light inside the house came from a skylight over the central vestibule and a couple of open windows I could see on the top floor. A portrait of an austere-looking man wearing a fifteenth-century ruff hung above the fireplace in another room which, judging by the books and sewing basket, must have been where Manuel’s aunt spent most of her time.

  “One of your ancestors?” I asked Manuel.

  “None other than Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, grandee of Spain and first Marquis of Denia. Remember I told you that the Denias were the ones who guarded Juana? This is the father.”

  In the portrait, Don Bernardo looked serene, so calm and sure of himself it bordered on arrogance, as if he thought misfortune were somehow beneath him. Dressed all in black–like almost everyone back then–he had the same white, translucent skin as Manuel. His lips were so thin you could hardly see them, and his expression proclaimed that he was proud to have tamed the temptations of the flesh. He looked very comfortable with the spiritual rigor of his times. I imagined him as the type who would condemn others’ weaknesses without one iota of charity or compassion. You could see it by the way his chin–partially hidden by a carefully trimmed goatee–jutted slightly upward. Like Manuel, his hair was white to
o.

  “People from the other side of the Atlantic, from the Americas, like you, don’t have to worry so much about history.”

  That was the first thing the aunt said when she walked into the living room and saw me staring at the portrait.

  “Just its consequences,” I replied.

  Without moving, Manuel glanced over, satisfied with my comeback. I felt like he wanted to protect me, trace a dividing line between his aunt and I, form some sort of nonaggression pact.

  “We have to deal with the consequences as well, believe you me. But I was referring to these familial reminders. I don’t think you in America care as much as we do about family trees,” she said as she planted a kiss on each of Manuel’s cheeks and then approached me and offered her hand.

  “Lucía,” I said, feeling the cold of her rings against my skin.

  “How old are you, child? You look very young. Manuel only told me that you were from Latin America,” she said, glancing back and forth between us.

  “Seventeen.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, in a tone that was open to several possible interpretations. “Let’s have a little something to eat, shall we?”

  We went into the kitchen, and she made us sit down as she got out cookies, juice, and other things that she set on the table. Through the window I could see a stone path leading from the door to a fountain, out beyond the chestnut tree. It was still, and all overgrown with moss and ivy. Vines that climbed freely up the walls also ran over onto the ground, giving the whole place a cloistered feel.

  “Don’t even look at the garden,” Águeda said. “It’s in ruins. It’s hard enough just to keep up the inside of the house.”

  “My aunt has little interest in anything that takes place outside these four walls.” Manuel smiled.

  “Well, nor do you, child. And at least I live in the twentieth century,” she retorted.

  I watched her, curious. It was clear they liked teasing each other about their eccentricities.

  Obviously at ease, Águeda moved confidently around the kitchen. She grabbed milk from the refrigerator, put the teakettle on the stove, and passed Manuel plates and cups so that we could set the table.

  While we ate, Águeda talked about her education, which she’d received from private tutors. Her father had refused to send her to school, she said. He hated nuns. She had always been devout, but she had to pray in secret. She asked me about boarding school and about my family in that typically Spanish way: expansive, direct, and lively. I found it simultaneously charming and overwhelming. She had a huge range of expressions and gestures, and seemed to walk a fine line between her friendly tone and stern judgments, as if she were constantly on the lookout for the traces of hardness of character that she disliked in herself. But she was nice. Quirky. Then out of the blue, she lost interest in our conversation. She seemed tired and absent. Manuel had told me that she was becoming increasingly withdrawn. She had two or three friends she’d talk to on the phone who Manuel referred to as the Captives’ Club. This reclusive lifestyle must have run in the family, I thought. I only knew of one friend of Manuel’s, and that was Genaro, another historian, the tour guide.

  The shadows in the garden stretched through the branches of the chestnut tree. It had been so rare for me to have the chance to be with a family, to experience that intimacy. The quiet and the dim light reminded me of rainy days when I was a girl. I felt happy, relaxed, no longer tense at the prospect of this family visit. I found Manuel’s relationship with his aunt very intriguing. As we spoke, he had taken some papers from his backpack and begun reading and making notes. From time to time he’d glance up and look surprised that his aunt and I had anything to talk about. Águeda looked at him often too. But the second he returned her glance, the tenderness in her expression would disappear. They both pretended they were just putting up with each other, but it was clear to me that they loved each other more than either of them was willing to admit.

  Before we left, Manuel took me to the main vestibule of the house, which was an open atrium with a staircase leading up to the two upper floors, where he said only a few of the rooms were in use. He admitted that having his own apartment was a gratuitous luxury, but he said he needed to be alone sometimes. He wanted me to take a look at the stones embedded in a circular pattern in the floor.

  “They’re all precious stones,” he said. “Rubies, emeralds, aquamarine, lapis lazuli, topaz. They say they’re from Juana’s treasure, which Charles V surreptitiously snuck out of Tordesillas. The queen kept them locked up in chests in her room. Purportedly, these stones are the price that Charles paid for the Denias’ job of keeping Juana from having any contact with the outside world. There were so many gems that the Denia grandson, who built this house, decided there was no better place to keep them. When I was a kid, I tried using a knife to get an emerald out, but I got caught.” He laughed, pointing out the spot on the floor where one could see a minuscule white mark in the marble beside an enormous emerald.

  There were lots of valuable objects on display around the atrium, on tables, shelves, and in niches in the wall: porcelain plates balancing on delicate wrought iron tripods, a collection of silver liturgical objects in a glass-doored cabinet, antique boxes, keys. The walls were hung with tapestries that were in better condition that many of those in the Prado. Manuel showed me a collection of Toledo swords, a helmet, and canes with intricately carved handles dating back to the Reconquest. I could imagine his aunt Águeda with her duster bustling around all day, busying herself with chores she thought her ancestors’ ghosts were watching her perform.

  I wondered if that kind of obsession afflicted all nobles whose worth in modern times depended on the merits and pedigree of their past.

  “WHEN WAS JUANA TAKEN TO TORDESILLAS?” I ASKED MANUEL AS WE walked back toward the boarding school late that afternoon.

  “It won’t be long before we get to that part of the story,” he said, walking quickly, his hands thrust into the pockets of his jacket. “Maybe you could come up with an excuse to spend a whole weekend away from school. That way we could move ahead faster and your curiousity wouldn’t torment you. There must be girls who leave for the weekend, right?”

  “Of course. But it’s not that easy. You have to have a family agree to take responsibility for you; usually it’s friends of the girls’ parents. Or in my case, grandparents.”

  “My God! You’re not a baby. Couldn’t you just say you were spending the night at a friend’s house?”

  “I don’t think so. But let me find out. You’d better let me go the rest of the way alone; I don’t want any of the girls to see me with you.”

  MANUEL’S IDEA WAS VERY ENTICING. I WAS TEMPTED TO SEE IF I could push the limits of my very restricted freedom. He was right. I wasn’t a little girl anymore. It had never occurred to me to solicit privileges more suitable to my age. Maybe the nuns would be flexible. It wasn’t fair for them to just keep applying the same rules I’d had to follow when I was thirteen years old. But I couldn’t just lie, and I didn’t have any easy alibis. Maybe the best thing would be for him to come and meet Mother Luisa Magdalena; after all, he could just be a professor friend of my grandparents. Manuel’s face would fit the picture she had of academics, and they’d never be suspicious. I wouldn’t even look at him, so it would be impossible for her to pick up on anything. Although that wouldn’t even be necessary. What Manuel and I did in private didn’t translate into the conspiratorial glances exchanged between lovers. We were nothing like the couples who made out on benches on Paseo del Prado and La Castellana. Our passion was solely mediated through Juana and Philippe. Only when I became her–wearing her clothes or lying naked like her–was my silky skin stirred by the desire that normally lay dormant under my school uniform.

  AFTER MULLING IT OVER FOR SEVERAL DAYS, I DECIDED TO CALL MY grandparents. As I’d suspected, Margarita confirmed that I had to have their authorization in order to get the nuns’ consent. It wasn’t hard to convince them to send a telegram to
the mother superior, granting permission for my weekend getaways. As soon as they heard that Manuel and his aunt came from a long line of Spanish nobility, they assumed they had nothing to worry about.