“The death of God is a metaphor for the loss of a universal moral truth.”
Jessica Faleiro
in Conversation with Vatsala Mendonça
“Torture is their tool. To make you confess even to crimes you have not committed. Just the day before, Marco had been subjected to the torture of polé or pulleys. In the torture chamber, he was adjured by two Inquisitors and the diocesan bishop to confess to practicing Judaism. He refused. An executioner, a physician and a surgeon were called in. A notary was present all through to keep a record of the proceedings. He did this faithfully, including Marco’s appeals for mercy or death."
Jessica Faleiro: Your first book Shadow of the Palm Tree (2019) brought to light the presence of the slave trade the Portuguese brought to Goa. Your second book when god died (2023) brings to light the Goa Inquisition, another significant historical event in Goa that isn’t talked about very much. What was the motivation or inspiration for choosing to portray this particular moment of history in your latest novel?
Vatsala Mendonca: It is said that the three roots of identity are race, language and religion. The Portuguese had a three-pronged attack on Goan identity. The attempted mixing of blood lines that Alfonso de Albuquerque kick-started when he encouraged his men to marry native women; annihilation of Konkani, the native language; and the biggest weapon in the Portuguese colonial arsenal, conversion.
Soon after Albuquerque claimed Goa for his king, the “Christianisation” of Goa began. In 1560, as if in celebration of fifty years of Portuguese presence, the Inquisition was imported into Goa. A religious tribunal, it was established to suppress heresy and enforce Catholic Orthodoxy. Some historians believe it was the Catholic Church’s reaction to the Protestant Reformation Movement sweeping through Europe at the time. Despite similar Inquisitions being staged in Europe, Brazil and Cape Verde, the Goan avatar would come to be known as the most pitiless in Christendom.
I think my literary epiphany occurred when I stumbled on the story of mass baptisms staged by the Jesuits on January 25th, the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. The very first mass baptisms were staged in Divar and Carambolim. The first brought in a large number of Brahmins to the Christian fold, the second Kshatriyas. The Jesuits believed they had found a winning formula.
To ensure the success of the mass baptisms, for days before the feast, Jesuit priests would meander through the streets of the Hindu quarters accompanied by their largest and strongest African slaves. On their bidding, the slaves would effortlessly grab hold of any recalcitrant Hindu and smear his lips with a slice of beef making him an untouchable among his own people. This ensured his attendance at the mass baptism, his conversion to Christianity assured. The religious chauvinism of these Christian conquistadores sent me reeling. I had to learn more. Though the conversion policy in Goa swung between punishment and persuasion, its most chilling arm was, of course, the Inquisition.
JF: The world-building you’ve done for this work of historical fiction is impressive. What archives and key materials did you draw on to help shape the protagonists’ universe? (feel free to name some of your reference books, etc.) Do you worry about factual errors coming to light?
VM: I would be a more prolific writer today if I just flirted with research! Instead I allow myself to be completely seduced by it. One of the reasons I take so long to finish a book is because I often get lost down research rabbit holes.
Unlike my last novel, when researching when god died, there were no oral histories to rely on. Though the Portuguese maintained detailed proceedings of every trial held by the Inquisition, once the writing of abolishment was on the wall, records in Goa were systematically burned. But there was still a wealth of information to access from books and essays to academic papers and memoirs. The works of writers like Charles Dellon, Anant Priolkar, Jennifer Deane and Alan Machado gave me an invaluable view of the period in which the novel is set. I strongly recommend the platform academia.edu to writers. It has a plethora of papers on every subject.
Of course, an additional demand of writing historical fiction is that one needs to fact check everything. It wasn’t just the broad canvas of the Inquisition or colonial Goa that I had to learn about but even smaller details of the period. Had mirrors been invented at that time? Were umbrellas in use? What kind of clothes did people wear? What luggage did they carry?
There is a brilliant line in Julian Barnes’ Sense of an Ending: “History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.” I do my very best to get all my facts right but if I’m ever proved wrong, that will be my go-to line!
JF: While the Inquisition is present in the background, the story is focused on the norms of a very patriarchal Catholic marriage. The story begins in Goa, 1662, when Maria – a ward of the King of Portugal at the time – finds out that her betrothed died while making love to his slave. From this very dramatic opening of the novel, we are pulled into Maria’s life and the series of deprivations, humiliations and negotiations she has to constantly make in order to survive in a foreign world, where she is married off to a rich local whose level of ambition is met only by his brutality towards everyone around him. Maria and the other women in this story are constantly at the mercy of the psychological, emotional or physical brutality of men. Unlike your first novel, this one seems filled with unabated misery for the protagonist Maria and then, there’s Noor, Radha and Lakshmi whose stories also come to the fore, but still reveal the major subjugations of self they have to undergo, subject to the whims of the men around them in order to survive. We live in a contemporary world where literary narratives about women seem to make some commentary about female agency and I was wondering if you could shed light on how female agency, if any, is portrayed in this novel through its characters?
VM: The female characters in my novel are subjugated by the period in which they live. This is the seventeenth century—an era of colonisation, slavery, patriarchy, misogyny.
Maria – being Portuguese and an orphan of the King—stands at the top of the social totem pole. Noor—being a mulatto slave, hugs its base. Yet, while Maria is battered by her circumstances, Noor still stands tall. She is the strongest woman in the novel though she has faced rejection since birth. Her father, a Portuguese tradesman, could have claimed her as his own, gifting her a life of freedom. He does not, preferring to have one more slave than one more child.
Your point about female agency is extremely relevant. I think my characters gain agency when they finally drop the prejudices nursed against each other, when they learn to understand and support each other. Though independence colours female agency, my characters take control of their lives only when they depend and trust each other, when they act as one and speak with one voice.
JF: I like how you’ve brought alive the characters by telling us the story from multiple points of view. We get to see how their lives eventually intersect between 1662, the point when this story begins and 1672, when the novel ends. I’m curious why the women’s narratives are longer, whereas Peter and Jeremiah’s are much shorter? How easy do you find it to write the male?
VM: I do not suffer from literary misandry, but I do have a special fondness for my female characters. Despite all their inherent weaknesses, they are intrinsically moral beings. I have drawn the men with harsher strokes.
Peter, Maria’s husband, is a mole of the Inquisition. He is a man with no moral compass, and lives his life dedicated to his own happiness and the unhappiness of others.
Jeremiah, though presented as a brute, is, like the women, a victim. He is destroyed by the dictates of slavery and religious zealotry.
It was not a conscious decision to make the male narratives shorter. When I’m writing there are so many voices in my head, but the women’s voices are always louder. Not strident but louder, striving to be heard above the others. I feel great empathy for them. I am them but a part of me stands apart, nudging them down the path I have chosen for them. I maintain a lot more distance from the male characters. I am more dispassionate when telling their stories.
“Across the seas, King Charles’ court was often described as dissolute, hedonistic, its primary credo being pleasure. Despite her public humiliation and private anguish, Catarina gained cultural agency. Courtiers copied the design of her rooms that featured colourful Indian textiles, cane furnishings, lacquer cabinets and fine porcelain. She made the consumption of tea fashionable. Often described as lachrymose and lonely, she found simple pleasures in royal life, from playing cards, dancing and organising masques to picnicking, archery and fishing with her Portuguese retinue. Charles commissioned a royal yacht HMY Saudadoes, for his wife. It got its name from the Portuguese word saudades or longing. The nautical trips she undertook helped blot the clotted edges of Catarina’s grief. "
JF: What’s the significance of layering Queen Consort Catarina of Bragança’s experience of her marriage to King Charles of England within the narrative about Maria and Pedro’s marriage? It seems to be an anchoring presence for the story, of sorts. Did you intentionally set out to develop the story based on inspiration from her life?
VM: The story of Catarina of Bragança, the daughter of John IV, King of Portugal, has always captured my imagination. Living in Mumbai, one grows up with the knowledge that the seven islands were a part of Catarina’s dowry, a mere add-on to the rich bundle offered to the cash-strapped monarch of England, Charles II. How different Mumbai would be today if it wasn’t for that quirk of fate.
I have drawn parallels in the life of Catarina, the daughter of the king and Maria, a mere orphan of the king. Both women sail to new countries to marry men selected for them by the Crown. Both women are scorched by indifference and the immoral relationships of their husbands. Both women are humiliated by their inability to produce an heir. Both are finally destroyed by religion.
I wanted to train the spotlights on the malevolent role religion can play in the lives of both a queen and a regular citizen. Catarina was the target of anti-Catholic sentiment from the start. She was even falsely implicated in the so-called Popish Plot, a conspiracy to kill her husband.
In when god died, when Maria’s husband learns of her adultery, he unleashes the diabolical power of the Inquisition on her lover. It is a secular failing but one sentenced by a religious tribunal established to protect orthodoxy.
JF: You handle historical fiction with ease, that’s also a testament to your ability to craft narrative very well. What would you say is the genre you’re most comfortable in?
VM: I’ve been writing professionally for four decades (a long time!) so have dipped my pen into every genre. Articles, scripts, ad copy, corporate communications. But fiction is the genre that I enjoy the most. Though I came to historical fiction relatively recently, I love getting lost in a whole different world -- one with a different landscape, customs, couture.
Unfortunately, history is merely a guide to what man is and will continue to be. One of its basic lessons is that human behavior can change but not human nature, human habits can be altered but never instincts. So, people, nations, religious institutions continue to step onto the same venal carousel, to spin into the same downward spiral.
JF: What was your process for putting the book together? Are there any helpful tips you’ve picked up from other historical fiction writers that you can share? Did you use timelines, storyboards, plot development?
VM: George Martin once wrote that there are two types of writers – architects and gardeners. The architects plan everything in advance. The gardeners just dig a hole, plant a seed and water it. I have to admit that I am the gardener variety. But I don’t just water my seeds. I give them a great deal of love and care! Once I have an idea that I feel passionate about, I begin to research it extensively. En route, the main characters reveal themselves to me. As we become more intimate and the period they live in more familiar, I start writing.
My writing process is extremely fluid. I am not disciplined enough to create an outline, plot or character development. I just let the story go where it will. I don’t know where it’s taking me. I definitely don’t know what the end will be. But besides writing, I spend a lot of time rewriting. I can never shut out my inner editor. I am also very open to ideas and suggestions from early readers of my manuscript. For both novels, on my publisher’s suggestion, I edited out large chunks of text. They felt the storyline was being weighed down by too many historical events and cultural references. It was extremely painful, but I accepted that my characters needed to be free of excess factual baggage in order to truly tell their stories. Most importantly, I think when a writer respects her readers, they respect her writing.
“Few Portuguese women embarked upon – and fewer still survived – the long, tumultuous journey from Lisbon to Goa. Those who did often succumbed to the diseases of the orient: malaria and malaise. The average male emigrant could only afford to take his wife to Goa with the help of a monetary grant from the Crown. As this was hard to come by, the men did what colonials did best. They mated with the locals. The coming together of different genes – Portuguese and Indian with sprinklings of Chinese, Japanese, Javanese and Moluccan – created the most exotic fruit.”
“The Mother Superior’s words nudged their way into Maria’s thoughts. Like a veiled Cassandra, the nun intoned, “There is decadence in this land. Terrible decadence. The wealth of the Orient has brought in indolence and lasciviousness. There will be a moment of reckoning.” To the revellers at the reception, reckoning was an improbable concept. The wave of colonialism seemed to have no horizon, no shore.”
JF: What is the significance of integrating references to Greek mythology in the text?
VM: I must admit that the use of Greek myths in my novels is pure self-indulgence. I have always been fascinated by Greek mythology -- the stories of all-powerful, vengeful gods, flawed heroes, malevolent beasts. These psychological allegories have inveigled their way into the world’s collective consciousness. There are so many words in the English language derived from ancient Greek -- spartan, idol, antique, gymnasium. International companies like Amazon, Nike, Hermes and Pandora use Greek names to make a powerful corporate statement. Classic authors like C.S. Lewis and Mary Shelley, even current favourites like Madeleine Miller and Rick Riordan, have banked, with impressive success, on the hold these ancient stories have on our imagination.
For me, the Greek canvas of survival and suffering, fleeting joy and unattainable love was echoed in my novel. Though I realise that figures like Thanatos, Cerberus, Scylla and Charybdis, mentioned in the novel, are not run-of-the-mill, I like to believe that my readers will enjoy being introduced to them. After all, the motifs of mythology have contemporary images.
JF: Tell us the story behind the title – when god died?
VM: Many writers have presented the concept of the death of God -- from Hegel to Hugo. In fact, it is even technically referred to as theo-thanatology.
The title of my novel is inspired by Nietzsche’s pronouncement in 1882. Gott ist tot, the death of God, first appeared in the philosopher’s The Gay Science:
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood of us?
The death of God is a metaphor for the loss of a universal moral truth. Nietzsche was not celebrating the death of a divine being but was warning of the consequences of a society without a solid moral foundation. For Nietzsche, the belief in the Christian God had become unbelievable. God ‘dies’ when there is no good reason to believe that he exists. In my novel, God dies at the hand of the Inquisition.
JF: I thought that the way you portrayed syncretism in this book really spoke to the impact it has even on contemporary Goa today, which continues to practice syncretic religion. Could you comment on your choice to integrate this element into the book?
VM: I think the Goan gestalt is unique, a result of the enclave’s rich syncretism.
In Goa, belonging to a particular space is more important than belonging to a particular religion. It is as if the Goan says to the world: This is my village, so though I worship at the temple village, I also show reverence to the village church. And vice versa.
There is a religious double-occupancy in nearly every village. What the gramadevatas or village deities are to Hindus, patron saints are to the Christians. And they are venerated by both communities. The ultimate syncretic veneration is, of course, reserved for divinities who represent and protect Goa as a whole – Shantadurga called saibini and St. Francis Xavier who is saiba. Most Hindus worship saiba and many Christians saibini.
From the start, the Christianity practiced in Goa had its own syncretic model. The new converts transported the entire Hindu caste structure into their new religion refusing to see how the two were mutually exclusive. The Portuguese naively believed that if Goans accepted the European surnames of those who had catalysed their conversion, caste lines would be smudged even erased. That never happened. It is as if the converts managed to have the last laugh.
The spiritual syncretism of when god died is a conscious message. The othering of religious groups inevitably leads to violence. It is sadly a narrative that has echoed through the centuries since man first discovered God.
The views expressed are those of the author and are published here in the interest of free speech.
when god died can be purchased here.
Jessica Faleiro is the author of Afterlife: Ghost Stories from Goa, and The Delicate Balance of Little Lives.
Picture credit Natasha, downloaded from Unsplash.com