Cervantes Street (36 page)

* * *

I closed the house in which I had lived with my mother most of my life. We possessed almost nothing worth saving: I kept a few mementos and gave the rest away to charity. At Don Luis’s house, I was given the lugubrious chambers that had formerly belonged to Doña Mercedes. I brightened the walls, replacing the morbid statues of tortured saints and bleeding figures of Christ on the cross with colorful carpets, curtains, and tapestries, which had decorated guest rooms nobody used.

Don Luis began to talk in earnest about the composition of his novel. He showed me drawings he had made of the characters, and read intricate outlines to me, explaining how they would be developed. But time passed and he did no actual writing. I was expected to meet with him in the library during the morning hours and to dine with him every day, but the rest of the time I had no responsibilities. It took me awhile to become accustomed to the fact that I lived in one of Madrid’s great houses, and could for the first time wear clothes designed especially for me, clothes that made me look like a member of the nobility. I became a regular at the most exclusive gambling establishments. Perhaps for the first time, I was happy.

Then, in 1603, Miguel de Cervantes moved to Madrid with his sisters and his daughter Isabel. It was curious to see the extinguished flame of hatred light up again in Don Luis’s heart.

One morning, when we were in the library discussing the order of the notes for his novel, Don Luis said, abruptly: “You’ve heard that he’s here, haven’t you? I understand why you didn’t mention it to me: you’re trying to protect me. But I won’t have any peace until I find out how he occupies his time here.”

I offered to resume my old spying duties.

“No, I won’t hear of it, Pascual. You have risen in your station: you are my personal secretary. To spy for me would be beneath your new rank. However, I authorize you to hire a man to follow Miguel’s every movement and to report back to you. I won’t rest until I’ve found out why he has returned to Madrid after all these years. I’m convinced he must have something up his sleeve.”

The Cervantes brood had rented a house in a neighborhood of artisans. The women supported the family by sewing garments. It was rumored that Andrea still received monetary reparations from an old lover. Of Cervantes himself, little was said. He seldom went out and no longer frequented the infamous taverns he had patronized in his youth. Every night he was seen seated at a table by the window on the second floor, with a lit candle, writing until just before dawn. One of the sisters had mentioned to a neighbor that her brother was writing a novel.

When I mentioned this to Don Luis, he said, “Miguel
was
a writer. Since that appalling
Galatea
appeared, he hasn’t published anything. And that was almost twenty years ago. No, I don’t believe he will write another novel again. Or at least one of any literary merit.”

Even as he was saying this, I sensed Don Luis doubted his own words. The thought of Cervantes never publishing again pleased him in the extreme.

Then, as mysteriously as the family had arrived in Madrid, they packed their possessions and moved to Valladolid. I informed Don Luis of this new development immediately. It was at least something to talk about, other than his would-be novel.

“Why all this moving around, Pascual? It’s costly to move to another city. They are getting too old to continue their constant peregrinations. No, I’m convinced he’s hiding something, don’t you agree? It has to be more than just writing a novel. But what could it be?”

It was around this time that it dawned on me I was working for a man whose brains were disordered. I was troubled: madness is contagious; being around a person who has lost his reason, one begins to see the world through his distorted imagination.

The news reached Madrid that a man had been murdered on the doorstep of the Cervantes’s residency in Valladolid, and the family had been briefly incarcerated.

“How sordid! How sordid!” Don Luis exclaimed. “I’m sure he killed that man, Pascual. It had something to do with those whoring sisters of his. It’s too bad the Cervanteses were cleared of the charges. Miguel should have been exiled from the kingdom for good a long time ago. He’s been a criminal since his student days.”

* * *

Then, in December of 1604,
Don Quixote
was published in Valladolid by Francisco de Robles. Without delay, Don Luis asked me to order the book from one of the most reputable booksellers, for fear it would sell out before he could get his hands on a copy. There was already a long list of names of customers waiting for copies to arrive in Madrid.
Don Quixote
had been out only a matter of weeks when it was instantly embraced by the Spanish public with a passion I had not seen in all my days. Overnight, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra became famous. Wherever I went, people were talking about the novel. Even people who hadn’t read it knew at least one funny incident from it.

When I placed a copy of the book in his hands, Don Luis went into the library, where he secluded himself for two days. During that time, when I walked past the library door, I heard him cursing Cervantes’s name, or groaning as if the Holy Office were torturing him.

The death of Don Luis’s son had been a devastating blow. On his good days, he looked like a corpse just risen from the grave. But the success of
Don Quixote
and Cervantes’s celebrity were almost like an affront to his honor. One day, while we were dining, he suddenly said: “I heard that even the king has been seen reading it and laughing heartily. That means all the courtiers have read it too, to ingratiate themselves with His Majesty.” His voice quivering with controlled rage, he continued: “What you don’t know, Pascual, is that many years ago, when Miguel and I were young friends, on a night in which I had imbibed too much wine, I told him of my plan to write a history of a dreamer who ruins his family with his fantastic schemes.” Don Luis paused, as if to let me absorb what he was saying. “I tell you this so that you don’t think I’m merely a jealous man. He stole his celebrated Don Quixote from me!”

That day I understood that envy and hatred were the forces that kept Don Luis rooted to this world, and the hope that one day he’d get his revenge. I pitied him. “If it is any consolation, Your Grace,” I told him, “I’ve heard he sold his rights to his publisher for a bowl of lentils. Despite his fame, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra is as poor as ever.”

“Ha!” Don Luis exclaimed. He smiled, his face glowing with satisfaction.

* * *

Some months after the publication of
Don Quixote
, Cervantes and his entourage of female relatives returned to Madrid.

It was our habit to meet in the library every morning, except on Sundays. Don Luis would sit in his comfortable chair by the window, I at the long table in front of a stack of writing paper and an inkwell, my quill ready to take dictation. Most of the time, he would talk about the book he wanted to write. “I will write something important,” he would say. “I’m going to produce a great work. Nothing else will do.”

I was beginning to think he would never write anything—important or not. Many mornings we sat there for hours, in total silence. Then one day, shortly after he had found out that Cervantes was settled again in Madrid, Don Luis said: “Pascual, I cannot let him have all the glory.”

I picked up my pen as if to start writing; it was a reflex.

“What are you doing, you imbecile! I’m not dictating my book.”

It was the first time he had insulted me. Despite his condescending manner, he had never mistreated me. I swallowed hard and tried to hide my humiliation.

“I’ve concluded, after much thought and prayers, that I will write the second part of
Don Quixote
. If other people can write second, third, and fourth
Dianas
and
Amadises
, who’s to say I don’t have the right to pen
Don Quixote Part II
? It’s an old and honored tradition.” He stared at me and waited for my response.

“Of course, it’s your right, Don Luis,” I rushed to say. “Besides, your second part will be better than Cervantes’s first.”

“Thank you, Pascual. Of course it will be much better. I’m an educated man, I know the classics, I went to university where I learned Latin and ancient Greek. I’m convinced I can write a better novel than Miguel’s, not just because of my superior education, but also because I am a
moral
person. His
Don Quixote
is a sacrilegious book. Yes, sacrilegious. I’m choosing my words carefully, Pascual, fully aware of their exact meaning. If our king had not endorsed it, that novel would have come under the scrutiny of the Holy Office.” He paused to catch his breath. “My novel, on the other hand, will mirror the state of immorality I see everywhere in Spanish society, of which Miguel’s
Don Quixote
is patent proof. You know how at the end of his novel Miguel hints at the knight’s future sallies? Well, I’ll just pick up the story where he left off.” Having concluded his tirade, Don Luis fell silent. He looked spent.

I thought we were done for the day; I was about to replace the cork on the inkwell when I heard him say: “But I’ll write it under a pseudonym, as my motives are selfless and I am not interested in glory for myself. What do you think my nom de plume should be?”

I wanted to run away from that room and his presence. His voice, dripping with more bile than usual, nauseated me.
He’s a repugnant man
, I thought. “I can’t think of any fitting names, Your Grace. If you give me some time to mull it over, tomorrow I’ll present you with a list.”

“You may go now,” he said.

The next morning, before I had a chance to read him the pseudonyms I had jotted down as possibilities, Don Luis said, as I took my usual chair at the table: “Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda—what do you think, Pascual?” Before I had time to say anything, he went on: “Alonso, because I want a name that starts with the first letter of the alphabet; Fernández, because every other plebeian in Spain has the surname of Gutiérrez or Fernández; and Avellaneda, because of the fruit of the avellano tree, the filbert which poor people pick from the public parks to supplement their diet. Of course,” he added with relish, “to people like
us,
avellanas are just food for pigs.”

He smiled to himself, deeply amused by the pseudonym he had chosen.
This man is deranged
! I thought. “I knew Your Grace would find the perfect nom de plume,” I said. “It’s for the ages.”

* * *

Finally, after weeks of struggle, Don Luis dictated the opening lines of
Don Quixote Part II
:

The sage Alisolán, a modern yet truthful historian, writes that after the expulsion of the Mohammedan Moors from Aragón (the nation where he was born), he found among certain historical records written in Arabic a narration of the third sally of the indestructible hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, who journeyed to the renowned city of Zaragoza to participate in some tourneys being held there.

Even I, who was no literary critic but merely someone who read chivalry novels, could tell that this beginning compared poorly to Cervantes’s: “In a certain corner of La Mancha, whose name I prefer to forget . . .”

This is not an auspicious beginning
, I thought. But Don Luis employed me to write down the words that passed through his lips, not to judge their merit—certainly not to his face.

Instead of continuing to dictate the rest of the narrative, Don Luis began to draw maps of the possible routes Don Quixote would follow. “In order to be truthful, Pascual,” he told me, “I need you to travel all the way to Zaragoza and bring back a report on the conditions of the roads on which
my
knight will travel, the different inns where he’ll stay, the quality of the food and the sleeping accommodations, and the names of the trees in the forests where Don Quixote and Sancho will sleep on occasion.”

I was all too happy to get away from him and visit the best inns on the road to Zaragoza, where I requested accommodations that were reserved for aristocrats and important travelers.

* * *

A year after he had dictated the first paragraph of his novel, Don Luis had not written another word. Perhaps to excuse his dawdling, one day he said to me: “My research must be impeccable, Pascual. I’m sure my readers will appreciate the veracity of what I write. When it comes to the creation of literature, I believe the tortoise is always superior to the hare, don’t you agree? I want my readers to know that when I set down a period, it is meant as a philosophical statement.”

Our sessions in the library were made bearable only by his madness, which now amused me. Besides, my salary allowed me to frequent the gambling houses, where many noblemen had befriended me, since my pockets were always full of escudos, reales, and maravedíes. Even so, my bad luck at the gambling tables, in addition to other costly pleasures to be purchased at these establishments, kept me in debt. But I was not inclined to give up my new life.

Don Luis kept coffers in his chambers that he filled with the revenues from the family’s vineyards and orchards near Toledo. While he prayed in the family chapel every day, I began to remove gold coins from the largest coffers. The fortune he kept in his chambers was so large he would never notice the few escudos I removed to make my life more enjoyable. I would never see the world, so the gambling houses would be my recompense.

He might have thought that, like so many novels that were the talk of each new season,
Don Quixote
would be forgotten. That might be one of the reasons his writing of Chapter One had not progressed beyond the opening paragraph. But when it was announced that
Don Quixote
had been published in translation in Brussels in 1607, and that it had become a sensation there and in France, and that translations into English and other languages were being undertaken, Don Luis rushed to dictate a second paragraph and then a third and so on, until he had completed the first chapter.