Cervantes Street (35 page)

One day he said to me: “Pascual, I’m not sure I am the right person to act as prosecuting attorney for the Holy Office.” He explained: “Do you know that my main duty is to go before the tribunal of the Holy Office with the evidence I’ve gathered about the accused, and then to make a case for an auto-da-fé? It troubles me that the accused are not informed of the charges against them. Years can go by before these unfortunates are informed of the reasons they’re imprisoned.”

About the workings of the Holy Office I knew only what people whispered. No one dared to openly try to find out how the trials worked. I said nothing; I waited for him to unburden himself of the thoughts that pained him.

“I thought I was going to help the church purge Spain, and the Christian world, of the infidels who seek to undermine our religion with their heretical views.” Don Luis paused, his face locked in a scowl. “But from what I can tell, the only crime of some of these people is to be wealthy.”

So it was true what people whispered about the Holy Office: they burned so that they could eat.

“The worst part of it,” he continued, “is that I have to be present at the torture of these people and then their burning.” What he said next surprised me: “Pascual, I wonder, how long can I continue working for the Holy Office and exposing myself to so much suffering?”

That day I felt sympathy for him. Behind the cold façade he projected, and the nature of his hatred for Miguel de Cervantes—which seemed to be the motivating force of his life—he was not untouched by the suffering of others.

Like thousands of Madrileños, I had attended the autos-da-fé in the Plaza Mayor. They were one of the few free distractions for the people. There was a public procession of those found guilty, and when one was formally charged and his sentence was read, the mob jeered at the accused, threw garbage, and hurled insults. At the autos-da-fé the pestilential rabble released the anger they bottled up over their own wretched lives. These ceremonies lasted for hours, and many people brought food and drink to while away the time. At the end a Mass was said, followed by prayers for the souls of the damned. The condemned were executed later, out of public view, which incensed the masses, who felt cheated that they could not see the condemned being burned to death in public.

I have no sentimental notions about the human race; I believe we are God’s most flawed creations, that He was extremely tired and distracted the day He created Adam and Eve, and used His cheapest and most damaged fabric to fashion us.

* * *

I was once again trapped in my office, which felt like a kind of death. During those years, whenever Don Luis came to Madrid from Toledo, he invited me to dine at the Mesón de los Reyes. He counted on me to give him a detailed account of how the department worked in his absence. I reported on my coworkers, who were too broken by life, and lacking in imagination, to create any trouble. These creatures’ major source of happiness was to sit at their desks all day long, shuffling papers and wasting ink. At the council, everyone knew of my friendship with Don Luis and treated me as a superior.

At one of our dinners, I noticed that Don Luis looked more downcast than usual. All I could do was wait, and hope he would tell me what was troubling him. That night, he barely touched his food but drank more wine than I had ever seen him drink. This surprised me because he was not a man of excesses. We were still in the tavern well after midnight, and I became concerned that he was visibly inebriated, beginning to slur his words. I was reassured that his carriers were waiting for him outside. I tried to cheer him up by offering bits of gossip about my coworkers and the poetry world, spicing them up a bit to distract him from his gloomy mood. Though he was sitting across from me, it was as if he were so far away my voice could not reach him.

He stared at me with heavy eyes; his silence made me feel ill at ease. Then he said: “You never met my son.” Why had he referred to him in the past tense? I knew Friar Diego Lara lived in Toledo. This was most unusual: Don Luis never talked about his private life. Tears fell from his eyes. “Well,” he said, “Dieguito, my beloved son, the only joy I have in this world, left for the New World to convert the Indians. He sailed from Sevilla two weeks ago. Had I found out about his plan,” he continued, his words slowed by all the wine, “I would’ve stopped him. Oh, yes,” he exclaimed, shaking his fists, “I would’ve moved heaven and earth to keep him here in Spain!”

He broke down and started to weep, uncontrollably. It was so late that we were the only diners left in the Mesón de los Reyes. The young woman who had served us approached our table; with a flick of my hand I waved her away.

“Pascual,” he grabbed my hand and went on, “as long as Diego was in Spain, and I could see him, there was a spark of happiness in my life. Now, now,” he raised his voice and shook his head, “I probably won’t see him again. Oh Pascual, maybe God has punished me for the way I’ve lived my life.”

I said, “Don Luis, it’s very late. You should go home.”

With the help of one of the workers at the inn, I carried him outside to his chair. When I placed my hand on his rib cage to steady him, his bones protruded through his skin. The man we put in his chair, a grandee of Spain, had as much life left in him as a broken marionette.

* * *

Don Luis’s prediction about Miguel de Cervantes came true: late in 1592, I learned through one of my contacts that in the month of September Cervantes had briefly been thrown in jail in the village of Castro del Río. I barely understood the nature of the accusation, and getting the details secondhand did not help to clarify what had happened. But Cervantes had been accused of mishandling the royal accounts and taking some funds for his personal use. That was all I cared to know. I kept the news to myself since Don Luis hardly ever mentioned him anymore.

Two years after young Diego Lara sailed for the New World, the news reached Spain that he was killed and eaten by cannibals in the viceroyalty of New Granada. His shrunken head was found in a Motilón Indian village and sent to the governor of Cartagena, who forwarded it to Luis. All of Madrid was horrified.

Don Luis never returned to work. It was announced that Don Carlos Calatrava, a scion of a noble Spanish family, had been appointed to replace him. I feared for my future. If I were fired, how would I support my ancient mother and aunt? Would this man replace all of us (as was customary) with his own people and his friends’ friends? Would I ever see Don Luis again? Now that he had no use for me, would he still be interested in cultivating our acquaintanceship? I knew perfectly well that I could not approach him. I did, however, send a letter of condolence.

Long weeks went by. Then, for the first time in the years we had known each other, I received a note from Don Luis thanking me for my letter and, to my utter disbelief, inviting me to stop by his house on Sunday afternoon. After years of waiting to be invited inside the august Lara house, legendary for its elegance, the important paintings and magnificent tapestries hanging on its walls, I barely paid attention to the furnishings of the mansion as the majordomo led me to the library, a vast rectangular space, with shelves that went all the way to the ceiling and were accessible by a ladder leading to a metal corridor that wrapped itself around the room.

Don Luis sat by an open window facing the courtyard. As I approached, he greeted me. “Pascual, how good of you to come see me. Please sit down.”

I took my seat and noticed a horrible object encased in glass on the table beside Don Luis. I could not tear my eyes away from it. He noticed my interest.

“It’s little Diego’s head,” he said softly. “This is how the savages he was trying to bring into the fold of God repaid him.”

His voice was feeble, yet filled with anger. I felt nauseated, and fixed my gaze on Don Luis. I could not bear to look at the monstrous head again. It had been just a few months since the last time I had seen Don Luis, but if I had run into him on the street I might not have recognized him.

“Two days ago, I sent a letter to the cardinal resigning from my position as procuring attorney for the Holy Office,” he began. “You know, Pascual, at first I thought work would be a distraction. But it’s become apparent I can’t think about anything except the fate of my son. I’m not fit for this world anymore.” He sighed. “I spend my days praying in the family chapel, but praying cannot bring relief from my pain. It just helps me to pass the hours. I’ve lost my appetite; I cannot sleep; even to talk is often excruciating. I cannot bear the presence of most people. Unless they have gone through the tragedy of losing their only son, they will never know the depths of my sorrow. The only person I talk to with any regularity is Father Jerónimo, who was Dieguito’s teacher. He’s the only person who understands how I feel. He knows what I’ve lost.”

Don Luis fell silent and stared out the window at a parched garden. I tried to distract him with my usual gossip, but he remained unresponsive. Now and then he nodded to indicate he was listening. I felt sorry for him. Life’s tragedies make equals of us all.

As I got up to leave, the hand that shook mine was cold and clammy.
It’s like shaking hands with a dead man
, I thought.

“I’m glad to see you, Pascual,” he whispered, becoming a little more animated. “I’m afraid I’m not good company these days. But if you can bear to be around me, do come to visit again. It will comfort me to see you, even if I talk little.”

* * *

My beloved mother died, after a short illness that took her in a matter of days. My father had passed when I was still a child, and I had lived the rest of my life spared by tragedy. If there was any purpose to my life, it was to support my mother and her sister. My mother was barely in the ground when Aunt María announced she was packed and ready to go to Jaén, to spend her last days close to another of her sisters. I was relieved the morning I put her in a carriage going south, but when I returned to the empty house it was as inhospitable as a mausoleum.

My grief drew me closer to Don Luis. It comforted me to visit him after I left work at night. He seemed to tolerate my visits. He still walked and ate and talked, like any other man, but he was in another world most of the time. I no longer went to see him out of morbid curiosity; it had been a long time since I had extracted from him any news about the important people he knew. It was hard to admit, but he was the only person I was close to.

Don Luis began to talk about a novel he was planning to write. I was surprised because he had never shown any interest in writing novels. During one of my visits, he said: “Pascual, I need to keep occupied. There are those who enjoy doing nothing, but I’m not that kind of person. As you know, I’m devoted to poetry, but nowadays after I’ve read a few verses I don’t know what I’m reading. I’ve been dreaming about writing a novel since I was a student. Perhaps the time has come to attempt it.”

“What wonderful news,” I said. “May I ask, if it’s not too much of an impertinence, what it is about?”

“Oh, I only have sketches for a few characters.” He paused. “My main character is based on Rodrigo Cervantes. Yes, Miguel’s progenitor.”

He had not mentioned Cervantes’s name in a long time. In 1596, I’d heard that Miguel Cervantes had left his occupation as a tax collector. By my calculations, he had been working in that capacity for almost ten years. When I heard the news I thought:
That’s the end of him. May God help this pitiful man who carries a cloud of misery over his head, wherever he goes
. The following year I was astonished to hear he was incarcerated again because more serious discrepancies had been discovered in the books he had kept during his years of service to the crown. I had kept all this to myself. It seemed that for Don Luis it was as if Cervantes had already died and turned to dust.

“Pascual,” he said, breaking my recollection, “how would you like to work for me as an amanuensis? I’m looking for someone who will live in the house.”

“It would be the greatest honor of my life, Don Luis,” I was quick to respond. When he began to talk about monetary compensation for my duties, I could no longer hear what he was saying. Even in my wildest dreams, it had never occurred to me that one day I would be living in one of the great houses of Spain. How I wished my mother were alive so that she could rejoice in my great good fortune.

Working at the Council of the Indies, after Don Luis left, had become insupportable. Without him as my superior, I had returned to the bleak life he’d rescued me from when he put me in charge of spying on Cervantes. I did not have the connections to advance myself in my career as a civil servant. Any position I could obtain as a government bureaucrat would be as deadening as the one I had served in for many years at the council; it would have meant moving to another gloomy building, working with dismal people, and shuffling different stacks of dusty documents. But I needed to work. Don Luis could choose not to work, but I needed a salaried position in order to survive.

There was something else: I had turned thirty-five years old and was still a bachelor. I had become acquainted with a group of hidalgos who frequented the gambling houses, where sex of both kinds could be procured for money. The king’s secretary, Antonio Pérez, was a prominent member of that coterie.

I couldn’t tear myself away from the life I had discovered, anymore than I could stop hair from growing on my face. I rejoiced in the exquisite pleasures of the body, despite the church’s condemnation of any kind of sensory pleasure as immoral. The king’s secretary was shielded by his association and closeness to our monarch; but it was only a matter of time before insinuations would be made about me, and I was in danger of being apprehended and accused of having abandoned my interest in women and lusting after men. I was in grave danger of being burned at the stake, or assassinated in a dark alley like the notorious poet Álvaro de Luna. Early in the reign of Philip II he had begun publicly executing sodomites. Although these executions were infrequent, not a year went by that a well-known sodomite wasn’t burned in a pyre. And the men who met this fate were not members of the nobility, but men like me. Marriage was the best way to avoid any accusations, but for me, getting married would entail another kind of death. Don Luis’s offer was providential; working for an important man of irreproachable character, and being part of his household, might be what would save my life.