Parido appeared hesitant. He no more liked coming to see me than I liked seeing him. Perhaps he liked it less. I had nothing to lose from these encounters, but he had his pride. “I had not thought to seek you out.”
“And yet,” I observed, “here you are, lurking in the streets, waiting for me.” I had cause to be anxious that he knew I had been at worship, but he said nothing, and I could only conclude that he would not have failed to play so valuable a card. My friends at the small synagogue were safe.
Parido set his jaw as though bracing himself and turned to me. “I want to know more of what you have planned with Miguel Lienzo.”
I picked up my pace, if only a little. It was a trick I learned so long ago I hardly even notice doing it most times. Varying your pace of walking sets your companion on edge. He has to think more about trivial things than he ought, and that takes his concentration from where it needs to be. “I marvel at your presumption,” I said. “What makes you think, if I had anything planned, I would tell my enemy?”
“I may be your enemy, as you style it, but Lienzo is not. You are manipulating him.”
I let out a laugh. “If you think so, why not tell him?”
“Things have gone too far now; he’d never believe me. I’ve asked his brother to warn him off you, but I doubt that will do much good.”
“I doubt it too. A better strategy might have been to have his brother encourage him to do business with me.” I winked at him. “I heard someone left the head of a pig on his brother’s doorstep. I wonder if you, senhor, might know who would do such a thing.”
“How dare you accuse me of so wretched a crime? Listen to me, Alferonda. If you bear any friendship for Lienzo, you’ll stop this. If he crosses me, I’ll destroy him.”
I shook my head. “You think you can destroy anyone you like. You think you can work miracles of destruction. Your power as parnass has corrupted you utterly, Parido, and you cannot even see it. You’ve become a distortion of the man you once were. You threaten me, you threaten Lienzo-you see plots everywhere. I pity you. You can no longer tell what is true and what is your own fancy.”
He stared at me for a moment, and I could tell by his face that I had struck something. This was the oldest trick of them all, but I knew it well. I had practiced it often. The appearance of sincerity can truly unman even the most stalwart foe.
“Think,” I said, eager to press the advantage, “of what you have accused me, of what you have accused Miguel. Do you really think it plausible that men engage themselves in these wild plots? Is it not far more likely that your suspicion and greed have misled you not only to suspect things that are untrue but to do real harm to others?”
“I see I’ve wasted my time,” he said, and turned away.
I was not one, however, to let the fish go, once hooked. “You haven’t wasted your time,” I called after him, “if you will only think of what I have said. You are wrong, Parido. You are wrong about me and wrong about Lienzo, and it is not too late for you to atone for your sins.”
He began to walk faster and hunched his shoulders as if to protect himself from whatever I might hurl at him. And I did hurclass="underline" I hurled lies, powerful lies that fell like stones because they so clearly resembled the truth.
In the same way you can make a simple peasant who has given you his last coin think that a mere lout with too much hair on his back is a werewolf. He fears it may be a werewolf, so all you need do is point and whisper a suggestion, and the peasant will hear the howling for himself.
25
Though still in bed, Hannah ate her soup that evening and chatted calmly with her husband. Miguel and Daniel both showed their relief, though the storm had not yet passed. Miguel had been doing his best to stay out of Daniel’s path, but that night Annetje brought him word that his brother wished to see him in his study. Miguel found him hunched over his writing table, scribbling in the light of a good candle. Three or four more flickered in the breeze of the open window. Daniel had been smoking an acrid tobacco, and Miguel felt a headache gathering its forces.
“How does your wife?” Miguel asked.
“I no longer fear for her life. These frights, you know, can be fatal to a woman’s delicate humors, particularly one in her condition. But the doctor tells me there is no risk to the child.”
“I’m glad. It’s a terrible thing.”
Daniel paused for a moment. He picked up a pen and then set it down again. “It is a terrible thing. What do you know of it, Miguel?”
Though he had considered how he might respond to this line of questioning for the better part of the day, Miguel still had no clear idea of what he could say to put matters at ease. Did Daniel want a confession, or did he want to be comforted?
“I can’t say for certain,” he told his brother at last.
“But you have ideas.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I can’t say that I have no guess, but I have no way of knowing for certain.”
“Perhaps you should tell me about your guess.”
Miguel shook his head. “It would be inappropriate for me to speculate. It is wrong to make accusations where I can prove nothing.”
“Prove nothing?” Daniel slammed his hand down on the table. “Is not the head of a pig proof? Recollect that you are staying in my house, and your actions have endangered my family. I nearly lost my wife and child today. I insist you tell me what you suspect.”
Miguel sighed. He had not wanted to speculate too wildly, but who could deny that his hand had been forced? “Very well. I suspect Solomon Parido.”
“What?” Daniel stared incredulously. He forgot to finish puffing on his pipe, and smoke drifted lazily from his mouth. “You must be mad.”
“No, it is precisely the sort of scheme to hatch from Parido’s vile mind, and I believe you suspect him as much as I do. He has been plotting against me, and what better way to sully my name than to leave this thing at my door as though I have brought it upon myself?”
“Preposterous. Your conclusions require a contortion of logic. Why would Senhor Parido do such a thing? Where would so righteous a man acquire an unclean animal?”
“Have you some better way to explain this madness?”
“Yes,” Daniel said, with the solemn nod of a judge. “I think you owe someone a great deal of money. I think this money may be the result of a gambling debt or some criminal doing, which is why the person you owe can’t go to the courts. This abomination upon the stoop of my house is meant to warn you to pay or face the most unpleasant of consequences.”
Miguel concentrated to keep his face from revealing anything. “How did you reach this fanciful conclusion?”
“Quite inevitably,” Daniel said. “Hannah found a note rolled up and slipped through the ear of the pig.” He paused for a moment, that he might study his brother’s response. “She tucked it away in her pocket for reasons I cannot guess, but the doctor found it and presented it to me with the greatest concern.” He reached to the bookshelf behind him for a small piece of paper, which he presented to Miguel. The paper was old and torn-clearly ripped from a document used for another purpose-and it was badly stained with blood. Miguel could not make out much of the writing except a few words in Dutch-I want my money-and, a few lines down, my wife.
Miguel handed it back. “I have no idea of its meaning.”
“You have no idea?”
“None.”
“I will have to report this incident to the Ma’amad, which will no doubt investigate. We can’t keep the matter quiet, at any rate. Too many neighbors witnessed Hannah’s distress.”
“You would sacrifice your own brother to lend a hand to Parido while he carries out his petty vengeance?” Miguel spoke so urgently that for a moment he forgot that circumstance suggested no more likely a culprit than Joachim. “I’ve wondered about your loyalties, and I always chastised myself for suspecting that you might favor this man over your own flesh and blood, but now I see you’re nothing but a player in his puppet show. He pulls your strings, and you dance.”