The Adventures and Misadventures of the Extraordinary and Admirable Joan Orpí, Conquistador and Founder of New Catalonia

by Max Besora

  The old man, who’d been listening to our hero with all the patience in the world, got up from his armchair and said, “Young man, I hath not the faintest idea of whiche thee speak. I don’t work here. And without further adoo, goodbye!”

  And, taking a bow, the old man put on his hat and left the shop with quick little steps, looking over his shoulder in the hopes this lunatic wasn’t following him.

  “Who goes there?” said the true bookseller, a man with terrible teeth and overpowering halitosis, emerging from the back room where a bunch of people were working at a press. “Who art thou?”

  “Good tidings to thee, dear bookseller!” exclaimed Orpí once again, putting on his hat only to take it off again, and picking up a random book to feel its dry pages and theatrically sniff its binding in a repetition of already rehearsed gestures. “My name is Juan Orpí, a name that perhaps means nothing to thee and as such I shant repeat it (for the moment), but thou shouldst know that I hath come here because I wish …”

  “Enough blether & blather!” barked the bookseller. “What dost thou want?”

  “Work,” mumbled Orpí.

  The old man put down the stack of books he’d been carrying and inspected our hero’s hands, his physiognomy, his teeth, and finally, the width of his skull with a measuring tape.

  “Dear lad,” the bookseller finally said. “I seeth in thee a very particular, very decisive character, to put it one way, and yet thou hast an incorruptible streak of idiocy. And even if thou hast read all the books of all the world’s bookstores, thou cann’t force the rest of humanity to accept what thou believest to be literature, but rather tis thee who must accept what humanity believes literature to be.”

  “I comprehend thee not …”

  “In short: thou art no good for selling books, only for buying them!” said the bookseller, vanishing into the mountains of books and returning, a few moments later, with a pile of volumes that included books of proverbs such as Filosophia Vulgar by Juan de Mal Lara; epic poems such as La Araucana by Alonso de Ercilla and Pharsalia by Lucan; Latin texts such as The Golden Ass by Apuleius and Ovid’s Metamorphoses; novels of chivalry from the Carolingian and Arthurian cycles, works of philology such as Arte de la Lengua by Nebrija; satires such as Martial’s Epigrams; picaresque novels like La Celestina and Guzmán de Alfarache; political science books like Boccaccio’s The Fall of Princes; pharmacopeias such as Exposición sobre las preparaciones de Messue by Antonio Aguilera; books of theoretical and practical law like De justitia et jure by Soto, Recopilación de las Indias, and Censuras del derecho; books of oddities like Pierre Bouaisteau’s Historias Prodigiosas; of geology like Quilatador de plata, oro y piedras by Juan de Arfe; encyclopedic works such as De propretatibus rerum by Bartholemeus Anglicus; works of ancient history like those by Xenophon and Herodotus and more modern history like Ocampo’s Crónica General. A total of more than ninety volumes, which ran the entire spectrum of erudite literature being read at that time in Europe, were sold to Orpí at an exorbitant price, and he left the shop loaded down like a mule and without a pot to piss in, while the bookseller stood behind the counter, unable to stifle his laughter.

  ___________

  72. i.e. For years this Sevillian press had the exclusive monopoly on sales to America, thanks to the favor of the King.

  Chapter IX

  In which Orpí finds himself with girl troubles that he shant escape easily

  Having failed in his attempts to find work in Seville and having spent the little money he had on books, we find our slacker hero barely scraping by. One day he enters a courtyard so his horse Acephalus can drink from a generous spring. It is then and precisely then that he hears a woman’s infinitely lovely voice singing a popular song to the gentle strumming of a lute:

  My husband he went to the Indies

  There intendin’ to bulk up his coffers:

  He didst come back with many stories,

  But not a lotta dough to offer …

  Suddenly, the music stopped and a voice asked, “Dearheart, dost thou seeketh company?”

  Orpí looked up and saw a tall lass with generous bosoms in a window above. She was gesturing him over with a finger, as she gazed upon him with eyes of honey. Our hero did not refuse the invitation, subscribing to the proverb that says “always choose a girl who’s thin and fresh, she’ll be fat and sullied soon enough.” He climbed the stairs and found the singer waiting for him on the first floor. After removing his cape and hat, he was invited in for coffee served in silver cups imported from Mexico. While the girl with carnal lips filled his cup, Orpí suddenly found himself with a female leg upon him, its stocking lowered past the knee, and a high-heeled shoe now resting on the parquet floor. Our hero then looked up and found himself practically inside a plunging neckline with a red rose nestled in its brown and freckled cleavage. Orpí plucked the rose out with his teeth flirtatiously, and the rest was history. After a few hours of sexual gymnastics on a noisy mattress, the girl made known her undying love as well as her first and last names:

  “Úrsula Pendregast, daughter of mine noble father Arturo Pendregast, granddaughter of Calixto Pendregast. Not to mention mine mother was a countess. So basically, I’ve got certificates of pedigree on both esides. Would’t thou care to esee them?”

  “No thanks,” said Orpí, who looked the girl over carefully and couldn’t see nobility anywhere.

  “Ay, mye leettle Catalan, thou esetteth my heart aflame!” said the woman from Seville, phony as a three-dollar bill.

  “Quit yer carping, maiden, when all candles bee out all cattes be gray. Thou art very pretty, but yore love be feigned.”

  Just as the girl was about to continue with her list of supposed illustrious relatives, a tall, bearded man abruptly appeared in the room with the tragic expression of a cuck-hold: her husband.

  “Feculent sow, daughter of three-hundred squalid ‘arlots! Tis the fifth tyme I find thee with another gent! This time I’ll kill thee … trollop!”

  “Ceese and desiste, Gregorio!” she shrieked.

  Malgre lui, the deceived man’s most striking feature was his missing left hand, amputated after he was bitten by a wild boar, but that didn’t stop him from drawing his sword with his right and, with the fury befitting an enraged cuckold, he went straight for Orpí, who was still in his underwear, and found himself forced to defend the woman who was now crying inconsolably between the sheets. As the two men clanked swords, Úrsula came up behind her husband and broke a flower vase over his head. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “That’s all eshe wrote for yond nutjob.”

  “Yeegads, yee’ve slain him!” exclaimed Orpí.

  “As the esaying goeth: Ye who gallivant off to Peru, esshall get what’s coming to you!” she said, impassive. “Now I canst collect the twelve thousand arrobas73 of fine gold this perulero74 bastard found in the New Worlde, plus the widow’s pension, to pay for all these alhajas75 thou eseeth here.”

  Allow us here to clarify an important detail for the reader: it turns out that the ubercuckold Gregorio Izquierdo was a soldier of fortune from Seville who had gone to the Indies and found a treasure in a tributary of the Amazon River. His wife, meantime, had been gathering up a collection of lovers to fill her lonely nights. But none of those lovers had had the bad luck that Orpí did on that fateful day. And now you shall see why I say this.

  “I’m outta here,” said our hero, pulling up his britches.

  “Hold it right thither, dulbert!” she said, lighting up a filtered cigarette. “Listen to what we’ll do. Thou esshalt embark for Caracas, where this pig Gregorio keeps his riches, and with this letter I give to thee, essigned by him, pretend to be my husband and grab all the treasure he’s got holed up there. Nobody knows what he looks like anyway. If thou canst pull that off, forty percent of the treasure will be all thine. If thou don’t agree to my pleading, I’ll delate76 you to the Holy eSee. Have we gots a deal?”

  Orpí read the letter, which said:
>
  I, Don Gregorio Izquierdo, do hereby certify on this day—the date was here—with my name and on my honor, that all that is under my name belongs to me alone. And that only with my signature and my presence can my gold be withdrawn from the bank.

  And it was signed:

  Don Gregorio Izquierdo

  “I object!” exclaimed Orpí, waving the letter in the air. “This be all highly illegal! I shall report your misdeeds to the Royal Guard!”

  “Objection overruled, lawyer,” she said, laughing with a devilish smile. “What makes thee think they’ll believe an unemployed Catalan over an esSevillian lady? If thou don’t help me with my plan, I’ll tell the authorities that thee killed this gachupín77. And beliefee me, around here they burn people for much less.”

  “Why donst thou go to the Newe Worlde thineself to find that blasted treasure?” asked Orpí. “Thou art his wife!”

  “Dost thou take me for an idiot, Catalan?” she said, smiling.

  “Gregorio put all the treasure in his name, as the document esstates. He didn’t trust me een the esslightest (with good reason). Moreover, only edesperate men travel to America, and Iym a distinguished laydee.”

  Our hero, realizing he’d been had, exclaimed, “With permission, in sooth thou art a scheming scallywag and a witch.”

  “Permishon denied … doth we have a deal or not?” she asked, putting out her cigarette in a ceramic ashtray. “We’ll both get rich. It’s a win-win.”

  Our hero imagined himself in a hypothetical future, covered in gold and living nobly, and we have to admit he didn’t hate the idea. He put the letter from Don Gregorio in his jacket pocket, and left with his thoughts divided. If he didn’t do what Úrsula Pendregast asked, the city’s authorities would soon find him and charge him with murder, since a Catalan in that Spanish landscape was like a fish out of water. Orpí quickly returned to the inn and immediately gathered with his two friends, who hadn’t found work either, to explain his sudden change of plans.

  “And whatsoever shalt thou do now?” whimpered Grau de Montfalcó, in his falsetto voice.

  “They’ll hang thee, Joanet,” said Martulina the Divina. “Thou must leaveth Seville ASAP.”

  “Impossible, there be soldiers of the Crowne from here to Barcelona all along the kingsroad,” said Orpí, and with the letter signed by Gregorio Izquierdo open on the table, he made a decision. “I hath no choice but to do what that witch says. By passing for Gregorio Izquierdo and getting his treasure, I canst return to Catalonia and start a new life with every ‘I’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed. Wouldst thou like to accompanee me?”

  “I’m afearedt of the sea …” said Grau. “I prefer to start a new life in Madrid and study to become a docktor. The south hath brought us only misery & desperation.”

  “Well, count me in,” said Martulina the Divina, who had the true soul of an adventurer. “I’ll dress as a man as before, and thus pass unnoticed.”

  That very night, Orpí wrote a letter to his mother, which read:

  Dearest Mother,

  I am writing you from Seville, where things hath not gone as I hath hop’d. I ’ath not found work and, therfor, I’th decided to sette sail for the Newe World, whensc I hope to soon return with riches and honours. Fear not, Mother, for I shall make do just as I hath up til now. If perchance anyone asks after me, tell them that I’th gone to the Indies.

  With love and gratitude,

  Joan Orpí del Pou

  ___________

  73. i.e. A measure equivalent to 138 kilograms of gold.

  74. i.e. A man who had made his riches in Peru.

  75. i.e. Furniture.

  76. i.e. Report, inform on.

  77. i.e. A Spaniard who had spent time in America.

  Chapter X

  In which our hero sets sail for the New World under his new false identity: Gregorio Izquierdo

  The following morning, after bidding adieu to Grau de Montfalcó, who was emigrating to Madrid in search of a better future, Orpí and Martulina headed to the Arenal district, where a forest of masts swarmed and all sorts of people boarding and disembarking from the caravelles and galleons moored at the docks at the Guadalquivir River, donkeys carrying boxes of contraband books to the boats casting off for the Spanish Indies, navigators and sailors marching in formation to the naval school, all singing songs and smoking American tobacco, missionaries dusting off their cassocks, artisans, African slaves in chains, manufacturers, gentlemen, feathered natives of the New World, adventurers, musicians, merchants, students, and royal soldiers everywhere. Orpí looked at the officers’ jackets and braids with a mix of fascination and fear, not because of his support of the monarchy or lack therof, but because if they discovered that he was a Catalan, noticed his accent, they would arrest him. So the two friends, while striving to go unnoticed, got busy finding out what they needed in order to get onto a ship bound for America.

  After much asking around, they ascertained that they would need an authorization issued by the Casa de Contratación, where all travel permits were obtained, where one paid the fare and taxes, where the shipping quotas were established, and the import and export taxes collected, the boats inspected and charged the King’s fifth on all precious metals arriving from America. When Orpí and Martulina reached there, they saw a sign that read:

  EMBARKING PROHIBITED TO MOORS, CONVERSOS OR RECONCILED JEWS, BLACK SLAVES, HALFBREEDS, MULATTOS OR BERBERS, HERETICS, APOSTATES, LUTHERANS AND THE SONS OF SUCH. ALSO DENIED PASSAGE ARE FOREIGNERS, GYPSIES, CRIMINALS, AND LAWYERS.

  ONLY OLD CHRISTIANS ACCEPTED.

  When our hero saw that, his heart sank to his feet.

  “Lawyers too? We’re off to a great start,” he complained in his native tongue.

  “Friends,” said a man in line with them. “Ye be Catalans, is that not so? Well, allow me to tell ye that Catalans art not allowed on Spanish boats, as foreigners.”

  Orpí and Martulina looked at each other with nervous eyes when another man chimed in.

  “Relax, man, in pointe of fact, by law, they art allowed. While there be much controversee on the matter, those born in the kingdoms of Castille, León, Aragón, Valencia, Navarra, and Catalonia art not considered foreigners. Foreigners be the French, the Genovese, the Portuguese, the Germans, and the Italians. But really, if sooth be told, all sortes of riffraff manage to slip through.”

  “For a mere two thousand maravedis, thou canst become a rankless soldier,” said another.

  Our hero decided to enlist as a soldier so as not to raise suspicion. Martulina followed her friend’s lead. They both stood before some men in patent leather hats and black jackets who were writing down names on various lists, depending on availability of the ships.

  “Name?”

  “Ummmm … Gregorio Izquierdo,” declared Orpí, closing his eyes and thinking of the many possible ways out of the deceit he was entering into.

  “Whence dost thou want to go?”

  “New Andalusia.”

  “As a soldier for His Majesty’s government?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Doth thou knowe how to read and write?”

  “Yea. And mine only belongings in this world be abstract thoughts.”

  “Here we go again! I see thou art a dyed-in-the-wool intellectual! A convinc’d humanist! Very well indeede! Dost thou have thine own steed?”

  “Yea. He’s parked outside.”

  “Then thou canst embark as a distinguished soldier, with four bars, on the Argos, already despalmaó78 and chartered on course for Cumanagoto.”

  “And where be that?”

  “The Indies, where else? Some selfless humanist you are! Goe on now, and may God keepeth you safe!”

  “Damn know-it-all bastards …” grumbled the soldier as he received the next passenger, not realizing it was Martulina dressed as a man.

  “I’ll go aborde the Argos as well,” she said, making her voice as deep as her vocal cords would allow. “José Isla, at His Majesty’s service
. But as a rankless soldier, as I cant read.”

  A sailor with red cap accompanied the newly-named Gregorio Izquierdo and the newly-named José Isla to the dock and pointed out their ship to them.

  “I shud warn ye, friends,” said the sailor, “first get yer hands on some matalotaje79 lest ye starve to death on the journey.”

  After buying victuals for the long voyage, the two friends boarded the boat as our hero spelled out its name under his breath: “A-r-g-o-s …” as he thought about Jason and the Argonauts. They had to bunk with some twenty-odd other soldiers, and their long lances, muskets, swords, daggers, banners, drums, and trumpets, in one corner of the hold. The vessel in question turned out to be a 400-ton floating wreck patched up with rotted barrel wood, a twisted keel and leaks sprouting everywhere. But the vessel, despite being as small as a breadbox, had a captain, a coxswain and a boatswain, two advisors, eight merchant captains, an oarmaker, a surgeon, ten peasant farmers, a priest, a shipwright, a cooper, ten crossbowmen, a scribe, a bailiff, a doctor, a barber, four trumpeters, five bombardiers, seven oarsmen, eight bowmen, three steersmen, a seneschal, a black cook (who was the skipper’s slave), and one hundred fifty-two rowers.