I found myself responding at once with an elaborate and extensive justification: What I had meant was simply a woman who was white, not an Indian, mulatta, or Negress, which repelled me. Even the white woman (I lied), could only be a wench notorious for lechery, and was purely hypothetical, at that. I was entirely confounded and entangled myself in words without finding a way out. Clearly this could be prejudicial to my probable transfer. If I were viewed as an americano who offended against the honor of Spain and some interested party took it upon himself to raise a hue and cry, my petition to the viceroy might be obstructed.
I was beleaguered but found some relief in the thought of the paean to my virtue made by Don Godofredo Alijo himself over supper. “How can two such contrary opinions be maintained? An esteemed Ministro de la Real Hacienda speaks in my favor.”
Bermúdez, I saw, was finding himself speedily disarmed. Even if the matter were to come to the attention of the highest authority, the Gobernador himself, and the governor were inclined to deliver an opinion on it, the Oficial Mayor was a man of too little standing to advise him.
Bermúdez then ventured to inform me that in the days following the dinner certain gentlemen had spoken quite openly of the incident, though he, Bermúdez, would not be so indiscreet as to supply their names, unless, that is, the information were indispensable to such precautions as I might wish to take.
I felt superior to this low gossip, and would have even had there been some basis for it. I foresaw no imminent danger. I assured Bermúdez that he troubled me not at all. I told him he was most welcome to keep the names of those gentlemen to himself forever.
He could not budge me now.
•
This supposed favor offered me by Bermúdez brought an image unbidden to my mind: Luciana de Piñares de Luenga, observed on several occasions visiting the Oficial Mayor’s offices—a rare habit for a woman of her status.
But that was well before the supper party and I could not see its relevance to the present episode.
9
The unforeseen events, the jolts and agitations of those days, kept me from making any attempt to see Luciana. Until another official gathering took place, and such occasions were few and far apart, that would be difficult. Zama, the offender, could not step through the doorway of Piñares, the offended. And to seek her out at mass was to venture into a labyrinth; two or three religious services were offered each morning in every church in the city and there were six of them in all, not counting the ones where the natives worshipped.
Rita, once resplendent, was now less so, as if something were draining away her blood. When we saw each other she struggled to maintain a normal bearing. Wounded, she bore the bruises of the weak, humiliated by the strong.
•
My mind was free, therefore, to return to Marta. Thus disposed, I received a message from her. It arrived on the same ship that brought a gentleman from Uruguay who bore various letters recommending him to me. He had been drawn to the city by a promising transaction in the lumber trade. Considerable personages entrusted him to my good care and requested that I introduce him to those who might swiftly advance his affairs. This was sure to entail some diminution to my stock of silver coins.
Overcoming long misgivings, Marta wrote me about the penury of our household. She was afflicted. She had been forced to sell the modest adornments that were part of her dowry, though she had kept this secret from my mother. The money thus gained afforded her some respite, until such time as I could help.
At present, I could not help. I could only unbosom myself to her in another missive that spoke of how greatly touched I was by her silent abnegation while recommending forcefully and repeatedly that she continue to conceal the crisis from my mother. I had to clarify that though in principle my monthly salary was one thousand five hundred pesos, a thousand of that came out of the city’s own coffers. Those funds were scarce, and my share of them, in consequence, merely illusory. As for the other five hundred pesos, in fifteen months of residence they had arrived from Spain on only eight occasions.
“Marta,” my pen supplicated, “let us sacrifice ourselves a little longer. It is for my career, which I cannot abandon while I still seek another position, one closer to you, with greater distinction and genuine income. Also at stake is my name, the name of your children.”
10
I found lodgings for my visitor in a house on Calle San Francisco, which runs up from the river and behind Calle de San Roque. The Piñares de Luenga family home was on Calle de San Roque. If a man were to stand behind that house and throw a stone, it might hit the Uruguayan’s window.
I visited him assiduously in his rooms. My solicitous concern with the advancement of his affairs must have struck him as odd.
Then one day, very early, I observed, behind the Piñares home, a group of horses and mules being readied for a journey. The master of the house was preparing to depart for his estate in Villa Rica.
•
I allowed some prudent time to lapse, then invited the gentleman from the east to call upon Piñares de Luenga, Ministro de la Real Hacienda, who surely would be able to supply him with such information as could put the conclusion of his commercial negotiation on a solid footing.
Attired in a manner that earned compliments from my protégé, I passed by to collect him and with him on my arm presented myself at the entry to the home of Don Honorio Piñares de Luenga.
A young male slave informed us that the Señor Ministro was at his estate in Villa Rica and would not return for a month’s time. I manifested an intemperate disappointment, vociferating loudly and drawing looks of amazement from my companion. I was not leaving. I required further explanation. The Uruguayan tugged discreetly at my sleeve. Before he could ruin my plan, and in view of the fact that no one was coming to my aid from within, I resolved to give an order: “Tell your señora that a gentleman from Montevideo is here, presented by Don Diego de Zama, and that this gentleman must very soon return to his country and desires to be waited upon by the Señor Ministro.”
The cunumí withdrew, taking care to leave the door ajar.
The Easterner voiced his unease, wondering how I could be so insistent on pursuing information of questionable importance, especially given that the Ministro was not there to provide it. If I would be of help to him, there were other Ministros de la Real Hacienda. . . .
The door opened wide; we were to go in. The slave escorted us to the salon.
•
Luciana received us, very much the dignified lady but with a somewhat heightened color in her cheeks. She seemed glad of our visit and I knew this to be a consequence of my daring. There was, I believe, a sudden connivance between us.
Even so, she devoted all her attention to the man from the east, hearing him out for a while and lamenting her husband’s absence before besieging him with questions that the fellow could not answer since he was neither well-informed nor at all inclined to the sort of intellectual matters that excited Luciana’s curiosity. She wished to know about music and the theater in Buenos-Ayres and Montevideo, and since she could extract no enlightenment from him there, it occurred to her that this individual, a merchant, might have knowledge of textiles. She asked him about stores and stuffs and even the price of a silver thimble. Here was a field in which the Uruguayan could better acquit himself, and he sought to regain ground by presenting himself as a traveler and speaking of a journey to Córdoba. But that was a misstep. Luciana supposed that among the people he had befriended there must at the very least be some learned gentlemen, and she was seized by a fancy to know more of the private life of that class of person, their parties, assemblies, manner of dress, food, drink, and way of educating their children— questions for an encyclopedia, not the Uruguayan.
My turn arrived. I took the floor with some resentment, for I am a learned gentleman, though not from Córdoba, and she might well have questioned me. It is often thus: Those who have some position or fortune to boast of but have had no contact with any
university prefer to ignore the studies and diplomas of those who do in fact possess them.
My fund of anecdotes gave the Uruguayan a reprieve. So captivated was Luciana that, astonishingly, she would not allow the conversation to end until we promised to return two days later, at the hour of prayer.
11
That night I dreamed that a smiling, solitary woman who came for me alone was arriving by boat. In need of my protection, she entrusted herself to my arms. Tenderly our hearts mingled. I could give a precise description of her kind face. Her neck was blond and downy as a peach, and I was greedy for it.
She was not Marta. She was not Luciana. She was no one I knew.
•
I left my bed, newly spiritual. The morning was clean and propitious. I drank maté but declined biscuits. To eat, to chew, struck me as coarse.
In the street I crossed paths with a modest berlin, its harnesses frayed, its carriage worn by long use.
I paid no attention as it passed by. Then I noticed a hand, young, plump, and very white, protected by lace, clinging to the door. A drawn curtain kept the public from seeing anything beyond this small testimony of grace. The modest carriage moved on, indistinguishable from any other.
I thought of going for my horse. I put the thought from my mind.
Perhaps it was the woman from the dream. Of a certainty it was not.
Like that one, this woman moved within me in an unending caress.
Piecing together shards of hope, I sought to retain in memory the characteristics of the coach and the horses drawing it. I mused that for a lady with such a hand, to ride in that vehicle was hardly better than going on foot. Yet, I reminded myself, my own true lady, Marta, my señora, now disposed of even less.
I was a traitor to her love, humility, and sacrifice. Yet thinking of that hand, with its safeguard of lace, and thinking of Luciana, I sought to justify myself as if before a tribunal. “At least I must retain the right to abandon myself to love.”
To abandon myself to love, that alone did I underscore in my inventory of rights. Again I imagined the fugitive hand, pale and plump, and made it real by making it Luciana’s, and mine to kiss, a single kiss from a man abandoned to love, and then to rest my cheek upon it and feel its warmth pass into my body.
•
I had to present myself at the office. That realization did not pain me for I remained under the influence of the dream, and of the white hand, another dream. It did cause me pain, considerable pain, to reflect that reality continually eluded my grasp and that if a woman came to me, she did so in dreams and nowhere else.
Would I never be visited by love? Not Luciana’s love, even if I could obtain it, but the love of a woman from other regions, a creature with delicate, caressing ways such as are found in Europe, where cold exerts its dominion at least a few months of the year and the women wear coats as soft to the touch as the bodies within.
Europe, snow, clean-scrubbed women who never sweat to excess and dwell in sparkling houses where no floor is made of packed earth. Unclothed bodies in heated chambers adorned with lamps and carpets. Russia, the princesses. . . . And here was I without lips to
pair with my lips, in a country whose name a whole infinity of French and Russian ladies—an infinity of people across the world— had never heard. Here was I, consumed by the need to love, while millions and millions of men and women much like myself had no thought that I was alive, or that such a person as Diego de Zama even existed, or a nameless man with powerful hands who could seize a girl’s neck and bite into it until it bled.
Here was I, in the midst of a vast continent that was invisible to me though I felt it all around, a desolate paradise, far too immense for my legs. America existed for no one if not for me, but it existed only in my needs, my desires, and my fears.
•
I was newly spiritual.
Along my way, I came upon a middle-aged Indian woman, slumped in a ditch carved out by the rains, without strength to move.
I approached, with what aim she knew not, and her eyes grew imploring as if to beg me not to drive her away, not to harm her. That silent prayer, her abandonment and her pain, aroused a great compassion in me.
I wanted to know what her condition was.
“Tuvïg,” she said.
“Blood? Are you wounded?”
She shook her head slowly.
“No. Heavy bleeding, su merced.”
“What can I do for you? What can I offer?”
“Yerba or sugar to pay the médica, su merced.”
I gave her a small coin for her médica, who would be the native curandera, and another for herself. I told her she should wait for two men to come who would lift her up and carry her to the curandera and then to her rancho.
“I have no rancho, su merced. I am free. Once I had one but my man threw me out.”
I understood her situation but did not see how I could contribute to its solution. I flung another coin onto her skirt, conscious that it did nothing to alleviate her poverty or the illness her husband had tried to eradicate by eliminating his wife from his home.
•
An errand boy awaited me in front of the Casa de la Gobernación with a message from the Uruguayan. He had awoken with stomach cramps and vomiting, sure symptoms of the colic. He begged me to find someone to minister to his illness.
The blood rushed to my head. This seemed a sneer from fate, playing a malevolent game to excite my superstitions. I had tended to a stricken stranger in the street, wanting to help her back to health, and now her ailment seemed to have passed into my acquaintance. Because he was sick, there would be no visit to Luciana that afternoon: Such was the misfortune that befell me.
I sent word to the Uruguayan that specialists would soon be coming to his aid, but decided not to address the matter immediately. Secretly I wished him to suffer until he howled.
Nor did I send anyone to assist the fallen woman.
The Gobernador had given instructions that I was to place myself at his disposal the moment I arrived, which condemned me to wait in his antechamber until he summoned me inside. On this particular occasion he delayed until I was writhing with impotence.
Two very neat old men and a pretty young woman who was childlike and remarkably passive were in the same situation and observed my agitation. They had been in the room when I entered and had responded with timid courtesy to my brief salutation. No more than that passed between us and I felt humiliated by our apparent equality of status.
As it transpired, they were the matter at hand. Receiving me with soothing cordiality, the governor prayed me to save him from these people, whom he knew to be a fearsome nuisance.
I had to accede, nursing my vengeance in silence.
Passing through the antechamber without giving them a glance, I closed the door of my office behind me. Let them seek me out.
First they would have to grow weary of waiting for their audience with the governor. They would bestir themselves and approach the secretary, only to be informed that it was the learned councillor they should see. Then they would wait another long while before they were received at last and came to the realization that the learned councillor was none other than myself, that is, the very man in whose presence they had already wasted an irrecoverable half hour.
•
But time spent in that place served no purpose and I grew irritated by their placid endurance of the wait. I was more impatient than they were, or so it seemed.
I meant to be despotic and expeditious, but the old man’s humble words offered little scope for that.
He was the descendant of Adelantados, in a direct line from Irala, the city’s founder.
As he laid out his simple narration of facts, without posturing or pride, a knock came at the door: Ventura Prieto. I invited him in so as to put the old man in his place; now he would have to make his confession and plead his case before a stranger of unknown rank.
Ventura Prieto, ever discreet, made as if to withdraw, but
I gave him a sign and he stopped near the door, observing with interest.
The old man grew uneasy, just as I’d planned. He said he was one of the first inhabitants of Concepción, and had inherited lands. His hands had grown decrepit and he was unable to work his land. He had fallen into poverty. He had no choice but to petition Su Majestad for help, on his own behalf and on that of his wife and his granddaughter, who had lost her parents to the Indians in the bloodshed some ten years earlier.
At first the girl’s limpid gaze rested upon me. Then, slowly, she bowed her pretty forehead. The fingertips of her small hand dug into my table as if seeking something to cling to. My table was the representative of the learned councillor: I was the last solid ground on which to stand.
Once more I embodied something useful and important.
It was my vanity that spoke. “Vuesa merced may return to your land in peace. You shall have your encomienda of Indians. The Gobernador will remind His Majesty of it without delay, I give you my word.”
I put a good deal of effort into the theatrical solemnity with which I delivered this promise for I wanted to see the girl’s eyes light up with gratitude. I neglected, however, to request that her grandfather provide me with documentation in proof of his ancestry.
The young girl bestowed the tearful glitter of her gaze upon me. Within her joyful breast I knew myself to be someone.
•
Ventura Prieto had come to my office to deliver yet another message from the Easterner.
With uncharacteristic friendliness, I asked for his advice. He recommended Palos, the surgeon, and I made a joke about the thrashing with long wooden palos that the practitioner’s name implied. I asked where this Palos might be found, and charged Ventura Prieto to provide me with two men who could search for the fallen woman. I was feeling so good-natured and communicative that I told him what had happened. I wanted him to share in my compassion and humanity.
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