The Confusion

The feast had been brought in by the prisoners’ families and laid out on a long deal table at the edge of the prison courtyard, under a makeshift awning of bougainvilleas. It was a lot of harvest-time food: particularly squashes, baked with Caribbean sugar, cinnamon from Manila, and an infinity of beans. Jack had taken a liking to mushy food since losing most of his teeth crossing the Pacific. Up in Guanajuato he’d hired an Indian to make him a new set out of gold and carven boar’s tusks, but this accessory had been mislaid, somewhere along the line, after he and Moseh had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition. He guessed that some familiar or alguacil was chewing his pork with Jack’s teeth at this very moment, probably just over the wall in the dormitories of the Consejo de la Suprema y General Inquisicion.

“Consider your apologies accepted, and your flattery disregarded,” said Senora de Fonseca. “But a lady who attends a social function in a prison, organized by men-hereticks and infidels at that!-does not expect that the niceties will be observed. That is why every man seeks a wife, no?”

There followed a long silence, which quickly became embarrassing to those hereticks and infidels, and then stretched out to a point where it seemed likely to become fatal. Finally Jack kicked Salamon Ruiz under the table. Salamon had been rocking back and forth on his bench and muttering something. When Jack’s boot impacted on his shin he opened his eyes and shouted, “Oy!”

Then, amid sharp inhalations from all around the table, stretched it out thus: “Oigo misa!”

“You are going to Mass!?” said Diego de Fonseca, perplexed.

“Misa de matrimonio,” said Salamon, and then finally remembered to unclasp his hands and grope for the hand of his supposed novia, this evening’s nominal guest of honor, Isabel Machado, who was seated on his right. He had never seen the girl before, and for a moment Jack was afraid he was going to grab the wrong woman’s hand. “In my head, you know, I was going to Mass on my wedding day.”

“Well, keep your hands out of your lap when you’re doing it please!” Jack returned. The comment was not well received by the warden’s wife, but Moseh plastered it over by rising to his feet and hoisting his chocolate-cup into the air: “To Isabel and Sanchez,* whose betrothal we celebrate tonight, may the Inquisitor be merciful to Sanchez, may the auto da fe be of the non-violent sort, and may their marriage be long and prosperous.”

That toast led to others, which continued in chocolatey volleys until the Cathedral bells rang vespers. Then the dinner broke up as the prisoners and their guests got to their feet and began to walk in a long uneven procession around the perimeter of the courtyard.

“To walk around thus after eating is a custom up north,” Jack heard Moseh explaining to Senora de Fonseca.

“In Nuevo Leon? But that place was settled by Jews!”

“No, thank God, I meant the new mining country: Guanajuato, Zacatecas…”

She shuddered. “Brr, it is a land of Vagabonds and Desperadoes…”

“But pure-blooded Christians all. And after a big meal they always march around the town square seven times.”

“Why seven?”

“Five times for the Five Wounds of Christ,” Jack blurted out, “and three for the three persons of the Trinity.”

“But five and three make eight!” observed Senor de Fonseca, now becoming interested.

Moseh now literally stepped in between Jack and the Fonsecas and continued, “All right, I did not wish to bore you with all of the details, but really the tradition is this: formerly they would go eight times around, turning always to the right. Then they would reverse direction and march around four times, one for each of the four gospels, turning to the left. Then reverse again and three additional times to the right, one for each of the crosses on Calvary. But then some Jesuit came along and pointed out that five and three, take away four, add three, make seven all together, and so why not simply go around seven times and leave it at that? Of course he was not taken seriously until they got a new priest up there, who had gout in one foot, and did not like so much walking. A letter was sent to the Vatican. Twenty years later the answer came back that the Jesuit’s arithmetick had been examined, and determined to be sound. By that time the gouty priest had died of a fever. But his replacement was in no position to argue sums with the Pope, and so the tradition was established anyway.”

Visibly exhausted, Moseh now lapsed into silence, as did the Fonsecas, who had been driven into a profound stupor. Not until several orbits of the courtyard had been tallied up did anyone speak again.

“Damn all this dust!” said Diego de Fonseca, waving a flabby hand before his face. The monks who had been sweeping earlier were now shaking their branches in the air, releasing clouds of Popocatepetl ash.

“I heard unfamiliar screaming today,” Jack remarked. “Sounded as if someone was being given the strappado, but I didn’t recognize his voice.”