The Hand of Fatima
Ildefonso Falcones
About the Book
Snared between two cultures and two loves, one man is forced to choose. . .
1564, the Kingdom of Granada. After years of Christian oppression, the Moors take arms against their masters and daub the white houses of Sierra Nevada with the blood of their victims.
Caught in the conflict is young Hernando, the son of an Arab woman who was raped by a Christian priest. Despised by the townsfolk and by his own stepfather for his ‘tainted’ heritage, he is banished to live in the stables and becomes an expert muleteer.
When Hernando meets Fatima, a beautiful girl with black eyes, she becomes the love of his life. But his stepfather accuses Hernando of Christian sympathies and condemns him to slavery. Then news reaches Hernando that Fatima has been murdered. In despair, he embarks on a plan to unite the two warring faiths – and the two halves of his identity. . .
A breathtaking epic of good and evil, of love and hate, of dreams dashed and hopes regained, Ildefonso Falcones’ story of the Arab–Christian conflict brims with historical detail and unforgettable characters and reflects the author’s celebrated passion for rich historical detail and his flair for storytelling.
About the Author
Ildefonso Falcones’ first novel, Cathedral of the Sea, became a publishing legend with over a million copies sold in Spain alone. It has since been published in over forty countries, becoming a European bestseller. In his latest blockbuster, The Hand of Fátima, Falcones marks the four hundredth anniversary of the expulsion of the Moors from seventeenth-century Spain. Falcones is a practising lawyer in Barcelona, where he lives with his wife and four sons.
Nick Caistor is an award-winning translator of more than thirty books from Spain and Latin America. He has edited the Faber Book of Contemporary Latin American Fiction, and has translated other Barcelona-based writers such as Eduardo Mendoza, Juan Marsé and Manuel Vázquez Montalban.
www.rbooks.co.uk
Also by Ildefonso Falcones
Cathedral of the Sea
ILDEFONSO FALCONES
THE HAND
OF FÁTIMA
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La Mano de Fátima, first published by
Random House Mondadori, S.A. in 2009
First published in Great Britain
in 2010 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Ildefonso Falcones 2010
English translation © Nick Caistor 2010
Ildefonso Falcones has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9780385618335 (cased)
9780385618342 (tpb)
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Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Ildefonso Falcones
The Hand of Fátima
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One: In the Name of Allah
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Part Two: In the Name of Love
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part Three: In the Name of Faith
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Part Four: In the Name of Our Lord
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Epilogue
Author’s Note
To my children: Alejandro, José María and Guillermo
If a Muslim is fighting or travelling in pagan territory, he has no obligation to appear differently from those around him. In such circumstances, Muslims may prefer or be obliged to adopt a similar appearance, always provided that this supposes a religious benefit, such as being able to preach to the infidel, discover their secrets and transmit them to other Muslims, to avert harm, or for any other useful end.
Ahmad ibn Taymiya (1263–1328), famous Arab jurist
PART ONE
IN THE NAME OF ALLAH
And so, fighting each day against enemies, the cold, heat, hunger, a general lack of arms and equipment, fresh disasters, and continual deaths, we finally saw that warlike nation, once so solid, well-armed and defended, favoured by barbarians and Turks, now defeated, subjugated, driven from their lands and dispossessed of their homes and goods; made prisoner, their men and women in chains; captive children sold at auction or taken to live in lands far from their own. A dubious victory, and full of so many dangers that we at times doubted whether it was us or the enemy whom God sought to punish.
Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, The War in Granada, Book the First
1
Juviles, in the Alpujarra mountai
ns, kingdom of Granada
Sunday, 12 December 1568
A BELL CALLING the faithful to ten o’clock mass rang out through the icy air of a small village perched on one of the many spurs of the Sierra Nevada. Its metallic echoes drifted down the slopes, crashing against the hills of the Contraviesa, the mountain chain enclosing the fertile valley to the south. Three rivers, the Guadalfeo, Adra and Andarax, and their many tributaries flowed down from the snowy peaks to water the valley. Beyond the Contraviesa, the lands of the Alpujarra stretched to the Mediterranean. In the weak winter sun, almost two hundred men, women and children – most of them dragging their feet, almost all of them without a word – headed towards the church and pressed round its doors.
The building was a simple rectangular block made of ochre stone, bare of all external decoration. The bell was housed in a sturdy tower to one side. Next to the church stood a square built over the streams crisscrossing the valley from the Sierra Nevada. Leading off the square towards the mountains were narrow lanes bordered by a maze of houses with walls covered in crushed slate, one- or two-storey dwellings, with tiny doors and windows, flat terraced roofs and round chimneys topped by mushroom-shaped crowns. Peppers, figs and grapes were laid out on the terraces to dry. The streets wound their way up the mountainsides, so that the roofs of those down below were level with the foundations of those above, as though they were built one on top of the other.
In the square beside the church, a group of children and some of the score of old Christians1 living in the village were gazing at an old woman perched atop a ladder leaning against the church’s façade. The woman was shaking with cold, and the few teeth she had left chattered. The Moriscos2 slipped into the church without casting a glance at their sister in faith, forced to stay up there since dawn, clinging to the top rung and suffering the winter cold with no protection. The bell pealed again, and one of the children pointed at the old woman as she trembled with each clang, trying desperately not to fall off. Laughter broke the silence.
‘Witch!’ someone shouted amid the guffaws.
One or two stones hit the old woman, and the foot of the ladder was covered in spittle.
The bell ceased to ring; the Christians left outside rushed to enter the church. Inside, kneeling bare-chested a step or two from the altar and facing the congregation, was a burly, dark-haired, weather-beaten man. He had no outdoor clothes on to protect him from the cold; a rope hung round his neck and he held his arms outstretched, a lighted candle in either hand.
A few days earlier that same man had given his wife’s smock to the old woman on the ladder, for her to wash it in the waters of a spring reputed to have healing powers. No one ever washed clothes in that small natural spring, hidden among the rocks and thick undergrowth of the rugged sierra. Don Martín, the village priest, caught the woman by surprise while she was rinsing the garment, and had no doubt it was some kind of sorcery. Punishment was swift: the old woman was to spend Sunday morning at the top of the ladder, exposed to public scorn. The naive Morisco who had asked for the magic cure was condemned to do penance while listening to mass on his knees, an example to the entire congregation.
As soon as the villagers entered the church, the men split off from the women, who went to the front with their daughters. The kneeling penitent stared straight ahead of him. They all knew him: he was a good man who looked after his land and his two cows. He was only trying to help his sick wife! The men gradually took their places behind the women. When everyone had settled, the priest, Don Martín, his deacon, Don Salvador, and the sacristan Andrés appeared at the altar. Don Martín, plump, pale-skinned and red-cheeked, was decked out in a white, gold-fringed chasuble. He sat on his throne facing the congregation, flanked by the other two men. The main door was shut. The draught subsided and the candles stopped flickering. The coffered mudéjar3 ceiling glowed in the darkness, vying with the sober, tragic altarpieces.
The sacristan was a tall young man dressed all in black. Thin-faced and as dark-complexioned as most of the congregation, he opened a ledger, cleared his throat, and began to read: ‘Francisco Alguacil.’
‘Here.’
After checking where the answer came from, the sacristan made an entry in his book.
‘José Almer.’
‘Here.’
Again, the sacristan jotted something down. ‘Milagros García, María Ambroz . . .’ Each name was answered with a ‘Here’ that, as Andrés went down his list, sounded more and more like a grunt. The sacristan continued to check who had spoken and noted it down.
‘Marcos Núñez.’
‘Here.’
‘You did not attend mass last Sunday,’ said the sacristan.
‘I was . . .’ The man tried to explain, but could not find the words. Waving a piece of paper, he ended his sentence in Arabic.
‘Come closer,’ Andrés ordered.
Marcos Núñez slipped through the congregation until he reached the foot of the altar.
‘I was in Ugíjar,’ he struggled to explain this time, handing the paper to the sacristan.
Andrés glanced at it, and then passed it to the priest. Don Martín read it through carefully, verified the signature, and nodded his approval with a twist of the mouth: the head abbot of the collegiate church in Ugíjar certified that on 5 December 1568 the new Christian by the name of Marcos Núñez, from the village of Juviles, had attended the mass celebrated in his church.
Smiling almost imperceptibly, the sacristan wrote again in his book before continuing with the interminable list of new Christians – those Muslims ordered by the King to be baptized and to profess Christianity – whose attendance at services had to be confirmed every Sunday and on all holy days of obligation. Some of the names he called out drew no answer, and their absence was duly recorded. Unlike Marcos Núñez with his certificate from Ugíjar, two women could not explain why they had not been at mass the previous Sunday. They both hurriedly tried to excuse themselves. Andrés let them talk, but glanced sideways at the priest. When Don Martín raised his hand imperiously, the first woman fell silent; the second however went on insisting she had been ill on that day.
‘Ask my husband!’ she screeched, searching nervously for him among the men at the back of the church. ‘He will—’
‘Silence, you devil worshipper!’
Don Martín’s roar cowed the woman into silence. The sacristan wrote down her name: both women were to pay a fine of half a real.
When the lengthy roll-call was over, Don Martín began to say mass. Before starting, he told the sacristan to make sure the penitent lifted his arms holding the candles higher in the air.
‘In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit . . .’
The rite went on, although few in the congregation could understand the readings from the Scriptures or follow the frenetic pace or the constant reproaches with which the priest admonished them throughout his homily.
‘Do you really believe that water from a spring will cure you of an illness?’ Don Martín pointed at the kneeling penitent. His forefinger shook, and his face was contorted with anger. ‘This is your penance. Only Christ the Lord can free you from the wretchedness and hardships with which he punishes you for your dissolute lives, your blasphemies and your sacrilegious attitudes!’
Most of those present did not speak Spanish. Some of them communicated with the Spaniards in aljamiado, a dialect that was a mixture of Arabic and the Romance language. Nevertheless, they were all obliged to know the Lord’s Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Creed, the Hymn to the Virgin Mary and the Ten Commandments in Spanish. The Morisco children were given lessons by the sacristan; the men and women were taught Christian doctrine on Fridays and Saturdays in sessions that they missed on penalty of being fined or refused permission to marry. Only when they could recite the church prayers by heart were they excused from classes.
Some of the congregation prayed during the mass. Keeping a watchful eye on the sacristan, the children did so out loud, almost shouting,
as their parents had encouraged them to do. Under cover of this noise, the adults could avoid the attentions of the deacon as he walked up and down among them, and recite under their breath: Allahu Akbar. Many of them whispered it, eyes tight shut, with a sigh.
‘O Compassionate and Merciful One! Free me from my sins and vices . . .’ could be heard from the lines of men as soon as Don Salvador moved away. He never went too far from them, fearful lest they defy him by calling on the Muslim god in this Christian temple during high mass.
‘O Almighty One! Guide me with your power . . .’ a young Morisco man called out several rows back, his plea masked by the children shouting the Lord’s Prayer.
Don Salvador turned furiously towards him.
‘O Giver of Peace! Allow me into your glory . . .’ another man risked saying from the opposite side of the church.
The deacon turned scarlet with anger.
‘O All-merciful . . .’ a third man prayed.
Then suddenly, when the Christian prayer had finished, the priest’s rasping voice rang out again.
‘His name be praised,’ came the chant from one of the last rows of men.
Most of the Moriscos stood still, erect, unmoving. Some of them stared defiantly back at Don Salvador, but many lowered their eyes. Who had dared praise the name of Allah? The deacon pushed his way through the men, but could not identify the heretic.
Halfway through the mass, while Don Martín looked on closely from his seat, his deacon and the sacristan, one clasping his book and the other a basket, stood to receive the offerings of the faithful: copper coins, bread, eggs, linen . . . Only the poor were exempt from making a donation; if those who were better off gave nothing for three consecutive Sundays, they would be fined accordingly. Andrés took careful note of who gave what.
When the bell the Moriscos called ‘the death knell’ sounded for the consecration of the host, they reluctantly knelt while the old Christians professed their faith. The bell tinkled as the priest, back to the congregation, raised the host; it sounded again as he held the chalice aloft. He was about to pronounce the sacrament when all of a sudden, enraged at the muttering disturbing the church’s silence, he turned furiously to face the worshippers.
