The Familiar

Santángel, as he walks through Madrid, reflects on why he doesn’t just leave Víctor and concludes it is because “he was a coward. He had always feared death more than he resented this unrelenting life” (80). He wonders if Luzia is a conversa or a morisca and thinks of the magic and poetry bleeding away with the bodies of the Jews and Muslims the Inquisition has killed.

He goes to the house of Garavito, an informant who didn’t tell Víctor of a milagrero who has now been claimed by someone else. Garavito attacks and stabs Santángel, and Santángel pulls out the knife and stabs Garavito in return, leaving him to die. Santángel’s injuries are painful, but he knows he will not die. He reports to Víctor and feels rage toward the man.

Luzia cooperates with Santángel but wonders about him. She dreams she is walking through an orange grove holding someone’s hand. The cook Águeda calls Santángel El Alacrán, “the scorpion,” and says he made a bargain with the devil for eternal life. She says Luzia’s work is of the devil and Luzia throws the cook’s cap into the fire, challenging her to say Luzia’s milagritos are from God. Luzia says, “One must never expect miracles, but one can hope for them all the same” (91).