Cervantes Street (29 page)

Another good effect of leaving Madrid was to distance myself from its cutthroat literary world. I had good reason to be hopeful for the first time in years: after many delays
La Galatea
was scheduled for publication in the spring. The dream that my novel would bring me fame and respect, and improve the material circumstances of my life, was fed by my optimistic nature.

I had been invited to Esquivias by Doña Juana Gaitán, widow of my good friend, the estimable poet Pedro Laínez, whom I considered my literary master. Pedro had died suddenly early in the year, and Doña Juana was concerned that unless my late friend’s poems were compiled and published, he would be forgotten. My admiration for Pedro’s poetry was sincere and well known. Doña Juana (God bless her!) decided I would be the appropriate person to sort through the handwritten poems Pedro had left on loose sheets and scraps of paper and prepare them for publication. Pedro, a true Castilian hidalgo, had befriended me when I arrived in Madrid from Algiers, at a time when I had few remaining friends in the city from my student days, and he had introduced me to some of the most talented poets then living in the royal city. To this select group of bards Pedro had praised with vehemence the few poems I had managed to jot down during my years in the bagnio. With his endorsement I was accepted into Madrid’s exciting, though querulous, literary life.

“You can stay in my house in Esquivias for as long as you need, to get Pedro’s poems ready,” Doña Juana said in her drawing room in Madrid, where she had summoned me. “I promise to leave you alone, so you can work in peace. Our home is one of those big La Mancha houses where people can live under the same roof and see each other only when they want company. I don’t know what’s a proper remuneration for this kind of work, but I can offer you twenty escudos for your labors, if that seems fair to you.”

My astonishment must have shown on my face because Doña Juana paused to give me a quizzical look. Her offer came at a moment when, except for Ana’s charity, I was practically destitute. Not only were my pockets empty, but just a few days earlier, in a haze of wine, Ana had accused me of having relations with one of the serving girls in the tavern; I was getting ready to go to sleep in our chamber when she attacked me with a pair of scissors. I was lucky she did not harm my good hand.

“Does your silence mean the offer is agreeable to you?” Doña Juana asked. As she smiled, her black eyes sparkled. “Esquivias is a tiny village of no more than three hundred people.” In an effort to make the place more enticing she added, “Thirty-seven of our good families descend from hidalgos. Besides, Señora Petra, my cook, makes the best rabbit and partridge stews, heavenly lentils, and carcamuzas that are praised to the skies by anyone who has had the good fortune to taste them. As a poet who has seen the world, I’m sure I need not tell you about the unsurpassed excellence of our red wine. My wine cellar, if I may be so immodest, is one of the best in La Mancha.”

I hadn’t had such a tempting offer since Cardinal Acquaviva’s invitation to work for him, when I arrived in Rome as a young man.

The widow’s words were ringing in my ears as I entered the town. Old men dressed in faded hidalgo finery strolled about with skinny white hounds on leashes. I passed Esquivias’s handsome church, built on a hillock. Its tall Mozarab tower dominated the town. Mournful and elegant cypresses, shaped like inverted exclamation points, grew in a small park next to the church.

Every other house I rode by displayed a dusty, faded coat of arms. On the grand houses a stone cross was carved above every window. The intricate designs on the imposing doors announced the pedigree of the family within. They reminded me of the doors of the dwellings in the casbah, except that these were more austere, in accordance with the sober Manchegan landscape. I felt I had entered a place lost in time. As I followed the directions to the widow’s house, I rode with great anticipation in the golden and languid Esquivian twilight.

* * *

On my first night in the splendid old house the widow and I supped alone in an intimate dining room, where she must have taken her meals with Pedro in happier days. We sat at a red oak table, on high-backed armchairs whose seats were draped in burgundy velvet. Two large old paintings of saints decorated the room; I could barely make them out in the feeble light that emanated from the candles on the sideboard and the table. The window behind Doña Juana’s chair was open, revealing the starry Manchegan night; a balmy breeze blew in from the dark plain.

“I divide my time between Esquivias and Madrid,” Doña Juana said, as the food arrived. “There’s the matter of the vineyards that have been in our family for generations, and I have to make sure my tenants pay their rent.” A sad expression came over her face. “Pedro and I had three children, but only one—named after his late father—survived childhood diseases. My son lives in New Spain, where he is an important official in the court of the Viceroy.” She made a sweeping motion with her hand. “That’s where all the silver adorning this table comes from. I’m happy for him, because it is what he wishes. But it means I’m the only one here to attend to the family properties. I’d rather have my son in Spain than own all this fancy cutlery,” she sighed.

Although she wore a widow’s clothes, her lustrous silk dress framed to good effect her considerable bosom, on which she had pinned a brooch made of two large emeralds—one square, one hexagonal—set on a thick gold frame carved with fauna from the New World. Her gleaming black hair was held in a chignon and secured by a black shell comb adorned with tiny pearls. The darkness of night complimented her bewitching eyes. No wonder my good friend Pedro had been devoted to her. I had to remind myself I was there strictly on business.

“People in Esquivias are very curious to make your acquaintance. I want you to meet the best people here,” Doña Juana said. She took another bite, savoring the succulent stew of rabbit, carrots, and chickpeas. “Otherwise you’ll die of boredom.”

I partook of the aromatic and silky wine; its rich flavor traveled up my nostrils to my brain. The intoxicating elixir surpassed its reputation. In the future it was going to prove a great disappointment to drink any other red wine. “Doña Juana, you exaggerate, I’m sure,” I said.

“Miguel de Cervantes, you seem to forget that you are a war hero, a man who has seen the world, a celebrated poet, and the author of a forthcoming pastoral novel. Believe me when I say that all these achievements put you in the upper echelons of Esquivian society. To enumerate your duties, my young friend: You will have the whole day to organize Pedro’s work. You may come and go as you please. But your evenings belong to me. When I come to Esquivias my neighbors expect me to liven up our provincial life. They are always eager to know the news from Madrid. I will endeavor to make sure that we have many tertulias in my house, which I want you to think of as your own. And I plan to accept every single invitation I receive from my friends.” With a conspiratorial air, punctuated with a wink, she added, “My esteemed friend, this would be a good place for you to settle and put down some roots. There are a few young women, descended from noble Esquivian families, who would make a worthy wife to a man of your standing. Let’s face it, my friend, sooner or later you’ll have to put an end to your peripatetic bachelorhood.”

A wolf howled in the distance. Then another wolf echoed the howling of the first.

“Yes, we have wolves here,” Doña Juana said. “As long as you don’t go walking by yourself at night in the countryside, you have nothing to fear.”

I inquired whether she knew Sancho Panza’s family.

“How do you know the Panzas?”

I explained how.

“Oh, we all know each other in our village. Poor Teresa was left with a child after those wicked corsairs abducted Sancho many years ago; he was never heard from again. She will be happy to learn that you met her husband in that dreadful land of idol worshippers. Teresa has worked for our family all her life. And now her daughter, Sanchica, also works for me.”

After we said good night, I went out in the courtyard to smoke my pipe: Venus shone brightly and golden; it reminded me of my first night in Algiers. What would life bring me in this town during the next months? In the meantime, before the future unfolded itself, this was as good a place as any to fill my empty coffers, to mend my mangled body, and to stop striving.

* * *

My first morning in Doña Juana’s house I awoke to the songs of birds; their cheerful notes seemed to come from everywhere in the village. After a cup of chocolate and a slice of buttered, freshly baked bread, I went out on an exploratory walk. Flocks of sparrows, swallows, and doves fluttered in the cool Manchegan morning. I hadn’t felt so happy since I had set foot again on Spanish soil almost five years earlier. The village seemed like a kind of pastoral Paradise, far away from wars and destruction, where man and nature lived in harmony. Gentle streams coursed down the middle of the cobblestone streets; their pure water smelled as if they had sprung in a grove of orange blossoms. Perhaps this was the place where I could finally heal from the years in Algiers. Perhaps I could hide in Esquivias until I broke the chains that bound me to Ana de Villafranca and to Madrid’s underbelly, where death or incarceration seemed my likeliest end.

I settled into my pleasant but melancholy work. Although some of Pedro’s poems were written in notebooks, most were scribbled on loose sheets. There were approximately two hundred unpublished poems, almost all undated. Many of them were signed
Damon
, Pedro’s pseudonym for his pastoral compositions. In the trove of poems, some of them known to me, I found the usual imitations of Petrarch and of the cancioneros. It was the echo of the music of Garcilaso that had drawn me to Pedro’s poetry. But Pedro was no mere imitator of the immortal bard: he had used the usual conventions to create works of originality and sincerity. His baroque love poems were explorations of the brevity of our passage through the world. It would take much patience to decipher his knotted calligraphy, but it would be a pleasurable task to catalogue the poems. It was almost a way of continuing the conversation with my friend beyond the grave. This was the most gratifying job I had ever had. Might my luck be about to take a turn for the better? I wondered.

Doña Juana was happy to preside over frequent supper parties at which the Esquivian red wine flowed freely. Her cook’s meals were invariably outstanding: white beans with rabbit or partridge; carcamusa
,
made with the choicest veal and large quantities of onions, celery, and the freshest legumes; and the Manchegan migas
,
prepared with spicy chorizos, plenty of garlic, generous portions of bacon, and red peppers topped with the ripest and juiciest grapes of the harvest. In Doña Petra’s hands, a simple dish like lentil pottage was earthy, fragrant, and succulent, as satisfying as any delicacy. Her mistress’s appetite for good food insured that the fire in the kitchen was always lit, that there was always a pot simmering, and that all day long the most enticing aromas penetrated every room of the house.

The widow loved village gossip as much as she loved to eat. At the first supper party, which she gave in my honor, I met the town’s elderly priest, Juan de Palacios. His hair and beard were white, and his face had been furrowed by the merciless sun of La Mancha. But his small eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“Doña Juana sings the praises of your poetry. She also says that your plays have been much performed in the Corral del Principe, and that you are a soon-to-be-published novelist. I am a lover of chivalry novels, Don Miguel. I own the four volumes of
Amadis de Gaul
, which in my opinion, though I’m a simple country priest and not a man of letters by any means, are the best books of their kind ever written. However, I do not care for any of the imitations.” He paused, waiting for me to respond.

“Doña Juana is far too kind in her praise of my talent. As for the ersatz
Amadises
, I couldn’t agree more: I find those imitations odious.”

Father Palacios smiled and went on, “I also own a much-leafed copy of
Tirant lo Blanc
, which I treasure as one of the most amusing books I’ve ever read. And I must confess to a weakness for the
Diana
of Jorge de Montemayor—though, here again, I do not care for any of the imitations. I have many other books, of course, but those are the jewels of my library. As for books of poetry, I’m ashamed to admit, Don Miguel, I have none, as all the poetry I need I find in the Song of Songs. At the risk of offending you, my most excellent new friend,” he continued, “for I understand your forthcoming novel is of the pastoral genre, I will admit that I don’t care for them at all. Only writers who have never plucked an onion from the ground, or milked a goat, could write such nonsense.”

“I don’t care for most of them myself, either,” I said.

“I can see we will be friends. We have much in common. You are welcome to stop by the sacristy for a visit anytime. I assume that as a good Christian you must go to Mass and confess with some frequency—for one never knows when the good Lord may summon us to His side, and it’s best to be prepared. You may borrow any books you haven’t read or wish to reread. It will give me great pleasure to lend them to you. We can talk about them over a glass of our never-too-highly-praised wine. I believe there’s much truth in the saying
In vino veritas
. You can’t imagine how starved for literary conversation I am when Doña Juana is in Madrid. The only other person of literary taste in these parts was my excellent friend, the illustrious hidalgo Don Alonso Quijano, a man of refined knowledge in books, who loved chivalry novels, and who, in his later years, became a monk. It’s hard to believe, but he has been dead for a good forty years. Ah, how time passes; so my advice to you is
Carpe diem
.”

We had consumed the first course, a delicious carcamusa ladled onto our plates with such largesse I feared I would have no room left in my stomach for the second course. But from the kitchen there wafted the gamy fragrance of roasted quails.