“I heard about this project some time ago,” I said, “in a letter he sent to a good friend of mine who serves His Majesty in the court in Lisbon.”
Pascual remained quiet, as if he were waiting for me to mention the name of my friend in the Portuguese court. He relished learning the names of important people, and anything he could glean about their private lives.
“Since when does he have a mistress?”
Pascual did a good job of masking his disappointment that I would not reveal the identity of my friend at court, but that was not sufficient reason to prevent him from gossiping. “Her name is Ana Franca, also known as Ana de Villafranca. She is a Jewess born in Madrid. I’ve seen her at her tavern; she’s a young, pretty wench, half Cervantes’s age. Her parents married her off to a man named Alonso Rodríguez, an Asturian merchant who is away from the city on business for long periods of time. It seems everyone knows about her and Cervantes, except her husband.”
It appeared Miguel had lost none of his charm with the ladies. He must have seduced the young innkeeper with tales about battles, captivity, and his sallies into the world of the stage. How convenient for Miguel that he had found a lover who could offer him, besides a place in her bed, free food and drink. Of course he would choose a Jewess—one of his own people.
Pascual continued: “People have heard him say, in a state of inebriation, that his novel, La Galatea, will put to shame all the pastoral novels written to this day. Considering that he’s a close friend of Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, whose The Shepherd from Fílida is considered the best pastoral novel yet written in Spain, I think it is the height of insensitivity. I haven’t read it myself, though not for lack of interest.”
“I have a copy that I’ll loan to you. As for Cervantes, I wish him all the best with his novel.” Then I turned the conversation to some documents that had arrived on my desk the day before. “Could you read them and give me a report? I need it immediately,” I said and dismissed him.
* * *
The imminent publication of La Galatea dominated my thoughts. I awaited its appearance in the store windows, as impatiently as if it were my own novel. Of course it will be dreadful; of course it will fail, I repeated to myself. The fear that it might be good tormented me. The mere idea made me lose sleep. What if Miguel became a celebrated author and a man of property? Then the “de” his father had inserted before Cervantes would no longer look ridiculous.
But before the publication of La Galatea, Miguel had another surprise in store for us. While sharing a glass of sherry (to which I had discovered he was very partial) with Pascual, I found out that Miguel had moved to a town in La Mancha called Esquivias. “I am proud of my knowledge of Spanish geography, which was expanded during the time I was employed in the Guardas of Castile, but I have to admit I haven’t had the pleasure of visiting the place,” I said.
“It seems, Your Grace, that even Esquivianos themselves try to forget that they were born there.”
“I thought his novel was due any day. Do you know why he went there?”
“I heard that Doña Juana Gaitán, the widow of the poet Pedro Laínez, invited him to visit her. It seems that Laínez left hundreds of poems in manuscript form and the widow has asked Cervantes, who was a good friend of the late poet, to edit them for publication in a cancionero. The widow Laínez lives in Esquivias, where the manuscripts are deposited in her husband’s library. Has Don Luis read the poetry of the late Don Pedro? May he rest in peace.”
“I understand he has admirers, but I’m not one of them. Perhaps I just need to read more of his work. In any case, we can assume Cervantes will return to Madrid as soon as he’s done with that business. Don’t you think?”
“I haven’t seen much of the world, though not for lack of interest,” Pascual said. “But Esquivias in not on the list of places I’d like to see. Much less live in.”
* * *
Not long after this conversation, Pascual delivered the extraordinary news of Miguel’s marriage to a woman from Esquivias. Her name was Catalina Salázar, a member of a good, but impoverished Esquivian family.
“I have it from a reliable source that his entire dowry consisted of five vines, an orchard, some tables and chairs and cushions, four beehives, a few dozen chickens, one cock, and a brazier. Not even a burro or an olive tree,” Pascual gloated. “I guess that’s the most a lame and penniless groom, and a failed playwright at that, can fetch in the provinces. In any event, if nothing else, he will have plenty of eggs, honey, grapes, and some of the famous Esquivian wine. Is it true, Your Grace, that this is the only wine our great king drinks?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know what kind of wine our king drinks, Pascual.”
“Anyway, as long as there isn’t a chicken plague or a bad drought, Cervantes will not go hungry.”
Barely three months had passed since the wedding when I was informed that Miguel’s mistress in Madrid had given birth to a girl named Isabel. Apparently everyone in Madrid’s demimonde knew that Miguel was the child’s father. That explained why he had married Catalina in such a hurry. It was not an auspicious beginning to his marriage. How would his new wife react to the news of the birth of this bastard child? It was just a matter of time before a charitable soul told Señora de Cervantes about it and Miguel’s villainous nature was revealed. As for the unfortunate bastard child, would she ever even find out who her real father was?
* * *
La Galatea finally arrived in the bookshops. I must have been one of the first Madrileños to read it. It was a true abomination: an undigested concoction of bad Latin, feigned erudition, and appalling verse. Pastoral novels were aimed at idiotic men and sentimental women. The characters in the stories were llorónes who, every other sentence, singly (and often in a chorus) wept about everything on earth. Sheep, goats, and calves did not bleat, they lamented. It was a wonder that the rocks on which the shepherds sat, and the trees that sheltered them and their animals, did not cry too.
Why people were enthralled to read about dim, unhygienic, flea-ridden shepherds who smelled worse than the flocks they tended was beyond my understanding. And what could anyone say in defense of the stories? I dare any rational person to make sense of their absurd convolutions. The writers of pastoral novels were vulgar, mercenary traffickers in words. Where were the writers of the great and noble Spanish epics? Weren’t these books a sign of the corruption of our national values?
With his characteristic brashness, Miguel must have believed that a man lacking a classical education could somehow trick others into believing he was a qualified writer. The same weaknesses I had noticed in the one play of his I’d seen glared at the reader from the first sentence of La Galatea. It was apparent to me that one of the main characters, Elicio, the wellborn, represented me, and Erastro, the humble one, represented Miguel. They are both shepherds, in love with the beautiful shepherdess Nírida, who is an idealization of Mercedes. She is described as a woman so beautiful that it seems as if “Nature had assembled in her the extremes of her perfection.” Nírida, in turn, is in love with neither man, and rejects them. And that, as unbelievable as it may sound, is the entire story! Toward the end of the novel there’s an endless list of all the living Spanish poets whose work Miguel supposedly admired. It was a way of currying favor with anyone who had ever scribbled a verse, no matter how rotten. That section was further proof that Miguel’s brain had been curdled by the raging sun of the Barbary Coast.
There were the usual fools and immoral clowns who applauded La Galatea, and wrote sonnets praising it. Even the great Lope de Vega, who should have seen the book for the mediocre thing it was, disgraced his quill. Obviously these writers praised the unfortunate cripple, the survivor, the charlatan, not the dreadful writing. Yet I myself could not refrain from visiting the shops in Madrid where books were sold, and inquiring about the novel’s success with the public. To my relief, despite the efforts of Miguel’s cronies to pass off shiny beads for jewels, readers of the pastoral novel did not e
mbrace Miguel’s opera prima.
Miguel had failed as a soldier, a poet, a playwright, and a novelist. Might shame keep him from showing his face again in Madrid’s literary enclaves? Esquivias sounded like the perfect backwater where he could disappear for the rest of his days. There—far from the civilized world—he could live the miserable life of an indigent hidalgo, and spend his idle hours amusing the ignorant old men of the village, gathered in the town’s malodorous taverns, with his fanciful tales about his days as a soldier and slave. These country bumpkins would no doubt be impressed with the exotic tales he would regale them with for a pint of wine. If the Algerians had failed to finish Miguel off, the boredom of life in that godforsaken place would do it.
With Miguel gone from Madrid, I lived for my work and my son, making sure he received an education fit for the scion of a family of our rank. Father Jerónimo and I were relieved that Diego had lost all interest in Byzantine theological arguments. Under Father Jerónimo’s supervision he completed his studies for the quadrivium. In a year’s time he would be ready to enter my alma mater, the Universidad Cisneriana at Alcalá de Henares, where he would stand out as one of the youngest—if not the youngest—student. Diego had always been a solitary boy, uninterested in the company of other boys his age. The world beyond the confines of our house held no attraction for him. I wondered how he would react once he had to engage with his peers in the larger world.
It was a source of disappointment to me that my son gradually lost interest in reading poetry with me at night. Instead, he had fallen under the spell of the night sky and the stars; his habits became nocturnal. Except on overcast or rainy nights, Dieguito sat by his window with his long lens, where he remained absorbed with the activity in the heavens until dawn.
* * *
Something rankled me. Despite the abysmal failure of La Galatea, for better or worse, I could no longer refer to Miguel as a would-be writer. I, on the other hand, was a mere high-ranking bureaucrat of the crown.
Perhaps to fill the void created by the loss of the cherished hours Diego and I had once spent together, for the first time in almost twenty years the idea of starting a novel began to interest me. I would not write a pastoral novel, despite their great popularity. I was not an admirer of the novels of chivalry, either. And the world inhabited by the characters of the picaresque novels was unknown to me; I had no desire to explore the lower depths of our society and write about people I found repugnant. During my days as a student at the Estudio de La Villa, after I met Miguel de Cervantes and his family, I had briefly entertained the idea of writing a story concerning an improvident dreamer who ruins his family with his fantastical schemes. The inspiration for this character was Miguel’s father, Don Rodrigo, who, with his chimerical aspirations, epitomized a certain type of Spanish man. Since my fount of poetry had apparently dried up for good, perhaps I should try to make a reality of my old idea. I had no experience with prose, so I started by writing a list of the main characters I would depict: the irresponsible Don Rodrigo; his suffering wife, Doña Leonor, a descendant of a good family who tries unsuccessfully to bring her husband, and her male children, back to reality; and Andrea, the daughter whose indiscretion becomes a source of great shame to her family.
All these years later, I could see with clarity that Miguel and his father were different sides of the same coin: dreamers who failed at everything they attempted; ruined men who could not stop dreaming.
* * *
Months of quiet went by until the winter of 1586, when an envelope was delivered to me with the seal of the cardinal of Toledo. It was a letter from His Eminence—written in beautiful Gothic script, on thick, smooth, golden paper—appointing me as a prosecuting attorney of the Inquisition, in recognition of my “outstanding love of the church.” In the pyramid of officers of the Inquisition, the cardinal reminded me, the prosecuting attorney was ranked fourth in order of importance. My main duty, His Eminence added, would be to conduct investigations of the heretics accused of grave offenses against our religion, and to report my findings directly to the Grand Inquisitor. Is this what God wants me to do to atone for my sins? I thought. Is this the best way to serve Him—to defend and protect our faith, to wage war against heretics and Jews and the devil’s disciples? Was I was put on this earth to be a soldier in His Divine Army? Another thought entered my mind: the day might come when, if Miguel de Cervantes threatened my well-being again, I would have the power to send him straight to hell, where he belonged.
Chapter 7
In a Remote Corner of La Mancha
1584
On a road leading to Toledo from the heart of La Mancha, a traveler will come upon Santa Barbara, a mount crowned by a church in ruins, which dates from the time when Moors and Christians fought over who would rule Castile. Santa Barbara is renowned for the white oak trees growing on its slopes, which produce acorns prized for their nutty flavor. On cloudless days, the traveler who reaches the top of the mount will be rewarded with the indigo-blue outlines of the Sierra of Guadarrama on the horizon, and with a view of the vineyards and grain fields of the village of Esquivias and its surrounding countryside, the Sagra Alta where the Goddess Ceres was worshipped in antiquity. The Visigoths who founded Esquivias also gave it its name, which in Old German means an extreme and remote place.
My friend in the Algerian bagnio, Sancho Panza, had been the first person to mention Esquivias to me. Sancho had praised the quality of its red wine, above all others produced in La Mancha, and he never tired of reminding me it was consumed only by the lucky Esquivians and King Philip II. Over the years, I wondered whether Sancho had died of thirst in the desert, or had been bitten by a viper, or devoured by lions or wolves, or kidnapped and enslaved by Berber raiders. If his family still lived in Esquivias, I would pay them a visit to show my respect for my Guardian Angel during my first years in Algiers.
I directed my mule onto the unassuming path that breaks off the main road at the foot of Santa Barbara, and entered the village late one afternoon at harvest time. The mule passed chattering and cackling country girls in open wagons, and girls on foot leading donkeys loaded with baskets of green and purple grapes. The breasts, hands, lips, cheeks, clothes, and especially the feet of the Manchegan wenches were dyed purple with the juices of the harvest. A strong smell of must trailed in their wake.
I entered Esquivias with a weary body but a hopeful heart. I was relieved to have left Madrid behind me, after reaching the conclusion that to continue frequenting Ana de Villafranca’s bed would lead to great tribulations. She was a good mistress who satisfied my manly needs and desires and did not ask for much in return, except that I appease her amorous appetites. But tavern life, with its clientele of ex-convicts and other shady and dangerous characters, where brawls often ended in the spilling of blood and sometimes in death, was not conducive to writing. It was just a matter of time before Ana’s husband, goaded by a drunkard’s comment, challenged me to a duel—and I was tired of running.
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.”
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