Amin Maalouf - Leo Africanus

A priest whom I knew, whom I saw leaving the chapel, gave me some additional information which served to confirm my suppositions: Maddalena had lived in a convent for a long time. In the course of a visit, the cardinal had noticed her, and when he was to leave at the end of the day he had quite simply taken her away in his baggage train. His behaviour had caused a scandal, and a complaint had reached the ears of Leo X, who had reacted immediately both as head of the Church and head of the Medici.

I believed that I was now in possession of the core of the facts, but I only held a little of the peel.

‘Is it true that you are from Granada, like me, and that you are also a convert, like me?’

I had overestimated my strength and my serenity. When she walked slowly into the little carpeted room where the cardinal had bade me sit I immediately lost all desire to question her, for fear that a word from her lips would compel me to distance myself. For me, henceforth the truth about Maddalena was Maddalena. I had one single desire, to contemplate her gestures and her colouring for ever. She was ahead of all the women of Rome in her languor. Languidness in her gait, in her speech, in her gaze as well, at once conquering and resigned to suffering. Her hair had that deep blackness which only Andalus can distil, by some alchemy of the refreshing shadow and the burnt earth. Before she became my wife, she was already my sister, her breathing was familiar to me.

Even before she sat down, she began to tell her story, the whole of her story. The questions which I had decided not to ask she had decided to answer. Her grandfather belonged to an impoverished and forgotten branch of a great Jewish family, the Abrabanels. A humble blacksmith in the suburb of Najd, in the south of the city of my birth, he had been completely unaware of the danger which was threatening his family, until the very moment when the edict of expulsion had been promulgated. Emigrating to Tetouan with his six children, he had lived on the edge of destitution, with no other joy in life but to see his sons gain some knowledge and his daughters become more beautiful. One of them was to be the mother of the conversa .

‘My parents had decided to go and set themselves up in Ferrara,’ she explained to me, ‘where some cousins had prospered. But the plague broke out on the vessel on which we had embarked, decimating crew and passengers. Landing at Pisa, I found myself alone. My mother, my father and my young brother had perished. I was eight years old. An old nun took me in. She took me with her to a convent of which she was abbess, and hastened to have me baptized, giving me the name of Maddalena; my parents had called me Judith. In spite of the sadness of having lost those most dear to me I was careful not to curse fate, since I ate my fill, learned to read and was never whipped without due cause. Until the day that my benefactress died. Her replacement was the natural daughter of a grandee of Spain, shut up there to expiate the sins of her family, who considered that this fine convent was nothing but purgatory for herself and the others. However, she reigned supreme, distributing favours and punishments. For me she reserved the worst of her heart. For seven years I had been an increasingly fervent Christian. To her, however, I was just a convert, a conversa of impure blood, whose very presence would bring down the worst curses upon the convent. And, under the hail of humiliations which rained down unjustly upon me, I felt myself returning to the faith into which I was born. The pork which I ate began to give me nausea, and my nights were tormented by it. I began to think up plans for escape. But my only attempt failed miserably. I never ran very fast, particularly in a nun’s habit. The gardener caught me and brought me back to the convent twisting my arm as if I were a chicken thief. And then I was thrown into a dungeon and whipped until the blood came.’

Some traces of this remained, but they did not detract at all from her beauty or the sweet perfection of her body.

‘When I was let out, at the end of two weeks, I had decided to change my attitude. I made a show of profound remorse, and showed myself devoted, obedient and oblivious to humiliation. I was waiting for my time to come. It came with the visit of Cardinal Julius. The mother superior was obliged to receive him with ceremony, although she would have sent him to the stake if she had had it in her power. She sometimes made us pray for the repentance of the princes of the Church, and was unsparing of her criticisms of the “dissolute life of the Medici”, not in public, but in front of certain nuns in her entourage who were not slow to mention it. It was probably the vices of which he was accused that made me have faith in this cardinal.’

I agreed:

‘Virtue becomes unhealthy if it is not softened by some misdemeanours, and faith quickly becomes cruel if it is not subdued by certain doubts.’

Maddalena touched my shoulder lightly as a sign of trust before continuing her story:

‘When the prelate arrived, we all lined up to kiss his hand. I waited my turn impatiently. My plan was ready. The fingers of the cardinal, adorned with two rings, were held out in a princely fashion. I took them, shook them a little harder than necessary, and held them two seconds too long. That was enough to attract his attention. I held up my head, so that he could look at my face. “I need to confess myself to you,” I said to him in a loud voice, so that the request would be official, heard by all the cardinal’s suite as well as by the mother superior. She adopted a sugary tone: “Move away my child, you are bothering His Eminence and your sisters are waiting.” There was a moment of hesitation. Would I find myself in the dungeon of revenge for ever? Was I going to be able to hold on to the hands of a saviour? I was holding my breath and my eyes were imploring. Then the sentence came: “Wait for me here! I am going to confess you.” My tears flowed, betraying my happiness. But, when I knelt in the confessional, my voice was strong once more to pronounce without a mistake the words which I had repeated a hundred times. The cardinal listened silently to my long cry of despair, just nodding his head to encourage me to continue. “My daughter,” he said to me when I had finished, “I do not believe that convent life is made for you.” I was free.’

Thinking about it, her tears ran anew. I put my hand upon hers, pressed it affectionately and withdrew it when she resumed the thread of her story.

‘The cardinal brought me to Rome with him. That was a month ago. The abbess did not want to let me leave, but my protector would not pay any heed to her objections. To take her revenge, she got up a whole cabal against him, interceded with the Spanish cardinals, who, in their turn, went to the Pope. The most dreadful accusations were made, against His Eminence and myself…’

She stopped speaking, because I leaped up with one bound. I did not want to hear any word of these calumnies, even from the exquisite mouth of Maddalena. Was it truth or untruth that I was fleeing in this way? I do not know. The only thing that mattered now was the love that had just been born in my heart and in that of the conversa . When she rose to say farewell to me there was an uneasiness in her eyes. My hurried departure had somewhat alarmed her. She had to overcome Jier timidity to say to me:

‘Shall we see each other again sometimes?’

‘Until the end of my life.’

My lips brushed against hers. Her eyes were alarmed once more, but with happiness and the giddiness of hope.

928 A.H.