Aleph

“I won’t be the one to go to the court and tell how, as a child, she used to talk to what she called her ‘invisible friends.’ It’s well known in the town that she and her friends would go down to the woods and sit around an upturned glass, place their fingers on it, and try to make it move by sheer willpower. Four of them have confessed to having tried to enter into contact with the spirits of the dead in order that they might know the future, and to having diabolical powers, such as the ability to converse with what they call ‘the forces of nature.’ God is the only force and the only power.”

“But all children do such things!”

The Inquisitor gets up, comes over to my desk, picks up another book, and starts leafing through it. Despite the friendship that binds him to this family—which is the only reason he agreed to this meeting—he wants to have the matter settled by Sunday. I try to reassure the couple as best I can with my eyes, the only means open to me, given that I am with my Superior and cannot voice an opinion.

They don’t notice, however, being entirely focused on the Inquisitor’s every gesture.

“Please,” says the mother, making no attempt now to hide her despair. “Spare our daughter. If her friends confessed, it was only because they were—”

Her husband grabs her hand, interrupting her, but the Inquisitor completes her remark.

“Tortured? Look, we have known each other for many years, you and I, and have discussed all aspects of theology. Surely you know that God is in each of these girls and would never allow them to suffer or to confess to anything that was not true. Do you think that a little pain would be enough to extract from their souls the very worst of ignominies? His Holiness Pope Innocent IV gave torture the seal of approval three hundred years ago with his papal bull, Ad extirpanda. We do not torture because it gives us pleasure; we use it as a test of faith. Those who have nothing to confess will be comforted and protected by the Holy Spirit.”

The couple’s lavish clothes are in marked contrast to the bare room stripped of all comfort, apart from a fire that has been lit to warm the place a little. A ray of sunlight enters through a chink in the stone wall and sets the jewels of the woman’s rings and necklace glittering.

“This isn’t the first time the Holy Office has visited the town,” says the Inquisitor. “On previous visits, you neither complained nor thought that what we were doing was unjust. On the contrary, you approved of this practice over supper, saying that it was the only way to stop the forces of evil from spreading. Whenever we purged the town of its heretics, you applauded. You saw that we are not cruel tyrants but seekers after truth, which is not always as transparent as it should be.”

“But—”

“But those things happened to other people, to those whom you deemed deserving of torture and the pyre. Once”—he points at the man—“you yourself denounced a family who were neighbors of yours. You said that the mother practiced the black arts and caused your cattle to die. When we proved this to be true, they were condemned and…”

He pauses before completing the sentence, as if savoring the words.

“… and I helped you to buy that family’s lands for next to nothing. Your piety was well rewarded.”

He turns to me: “Bring me the Malleus Maleficarum.”

I go over to the shelf behind his desk. He is a good man, convinced that he is doing the right thing. He is not carrying out some personal revenge; he is working in the name of his faith. Although he has never confessed his feelings to me, I have often seen him gazing off into the distance, as if asking God why He has placed such a heavy burden on his shoulders.

I hand him the thick leather-bound volume with the title emblazoned on the front.

“It’s all in here, in the Malleus Maleficarum, a long, detailed investigation into the universal conspiracy to bring back paganism, the belief in nature as our one salvation, the superstitious belief in the existence of past lives, the vile art of astrology and the so-called ‘science’ that denies the mysteries of faith. The Devil knows he cannot work alone, that he needs witches and scientists to seduce and corrupt the world.

“While the men are away, fighting and dying in wars to defend the Faith and the Kingdom, the women start thinking that they were born to govern, and the cowards who believe themselves to be sages turn to mediums and scientific theories for what they could easily find in the Bible. It is up to us to prevent this from happening. I did not bring these girls here. I am simply charged with ascertaining if they are innocent or if they must be saved.”

He gets up and asks me to go with him.

“I must leave now. If your daughter is innocent, she will be at home with you before a new day dawns.”

The woman throws herself on the ground and kneels at his feet.

“Please! You held her in your arms when she was just a baby.”

The man plays his last card.

“I will give all my lands and

all my wealth to the Church, right now. Give me a pen and some paper, and I will sign. I want to leave here hand in hand with my daughter.”

The Inquisitor pushes the woman away, but she remains kneeling, sobbing helplessly, her face buried in her hands.

“The Dominican Order was chosen precisely so that this kind of thing would not happen. The old Inquisitors were easily bribed, but we Dominicans have always made a living from begging and will continue to do so. Money does not tempt us; on the contrary, your scandalous offer only makes your daughter’s situation worse.”

The man grabs me by the shoulders.

“You were like a son to us! When your parents died, we took you into our house so that your uncle would not continue to mistreat you.”

“Don’t worry,” I whisper in his ear, afraid that the Inquisitor might hear. “Don’t worry.”