at the same time frustrated that in repenting she had cheated them of the spectacle of her writhing in the flames. The executioner removed the iron chain and moved to stand behind the next prisoner. And so they worked down the line of the condemned. As one by one their gags were removed, a few shouted their repentance so there could be no mistake they wanted the mercy of the garrotte. But through fear or pain or raging thirst, most could do no more than whisper their confessions to the friars, who declaimed them theatrically to the square. As the garrotte crept agonizingly slowly down the line towards them, the waiting prisoners trembled and tried desperately to pull themselves out of their chains. One lad pissed himself in fear, and the crowd jeered and whooped with delight.
When they came to the sixth man, they once more untied the leather gag. He was old, his hair white, his cheeks caved in as if all his teeth had gone, eyes sunk so deep into their sockets they looked like two black holes in his skull. The soldier lifted the blazing torch higher over his head, ready for the executioner to do his work. Up to then I hadn’t seen the old man’s face clearly because of the gag. But as the light fell full upon him, I realized with a jolt there was something familiar about the way he held his head, something about the mouth … the eyes … but why? Why did I think I’d seen him before? Then horror shuddered through my frame as I finally realized who the old man was.
‘Senhor Jorge! No, not him!’ The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Dona Ofelia turned a startled face to me. ‘Did you say something, child?’
I tried to smile, even though I was trembling so much I was certain I was going to vomit.
‘I thought … I … I saw a friend in the crowd.’
She smiled. ‘I expect you did, dear, half of Lisbon is here. But you said, “No, not him.” ’
‘Did I?’
Mercifully, before I was forced to think of an explanation, Dona Ofelia’s attention was captured once again by what was happening on the pyre. Unlike the other prisoners, Senhor Jorge had said nothing when his gag was removed. The familiaries and friars jostled around him, urging him even now to recant and be spared the agony of the flames. But as if he’d heard me cry out, he ignored them and, turning his head, stared directly at the spot where I stood. He opened his mouth and in a hoarse, cracked voice, proclaimed, ‘You Christians are all idolaters; you bow down before idols and worship a man instead of God … Shema Yisrael …’
It was all he could get out before they forced the gag back into his mouth. With a single bellow of fury, the enraged mob rushed towards the pyre, determined to tear him apart with their bare hands, and the soldiers had to beat them back. Several people fell to the ground, bleeding and senseless, before the soldiers could regain control of the crowd.
When they were satisfied that the gag was tied so tightly around his mouth again that not a single word could escape, the friars and the executioner moved on down the line. But Senhor Jorge stood quite still with his chin lifted, his eyes staring up at the starry sky above, as if he was back in his own flower-filled courtyard in Sintra. And just for a moment I was sitting there with him again, crouching on a stool at his feet, a wide-eyed little five-year-old, listening entranced to his stories, stories his Spanish grandmother had once told him when he was a small boy long, long ago. Jorge would sip his wine and lean back in his battered old chair, peacefully contemplating the heavens.
‘That is Lilith’s star, Isabela. You watch, over the next few nights she will grow dim and then bright again, like a great eye winking in the sky. Lilith … now, did I ever tell you of her? She was the most beautiful creature who ever lived and she used to boast that she could make any man in the world fall so hopelessly in love with her that he’d give all he owned for one night in her arms. But the angels said there is one man on earth who is too wise ever to fall in love with you, and