Cervantes Street

by Jaime Manrique

  But how could I evict old people from their homes when they could have been my own parents?

  “Miguel, try to understand my mother,” Catalina told me one Sunday on our way to Mass. “My father couldn’t tell a maravedí from an escudo. To him money was there to be spent. When it comes to finances, my little brothers have more sense than he did. Mamá is no longer young, she’s tired, and she feels overwhelmed. She needs a man who can relieve her of her duties. I know you are a poet, and you have a compassionate heart, but you must make an effort, Miguel. Our livelihood depends on collecting the rents owed to us. If La Galatea, as we all hope and pray, turns out to be a success, we can hire a man to take care of business, as you want, so you can devote yourself to writing without annoying interruptions.”

  I didn’t want to disappoint my lovely wife, who was a lady in the parlor and a whore in bed, and who treated me with tenderness and respect.

  * * *

  My blissful marital life was in imminent danger of deteriorating if Catalina and I continued to live with her mother. The house of the late hidalgo Don Alonso Quijano de Salazar had been recently put up for rent. Many years ago it had been regarded as the grandest house in the village and one of the finest in the environs of Toledo, but it was now dilapidated. Its walls were crumbling, and it was too large and expensive for most Esquivians. At the risk of displeasing my wife, I decided to use the money Doña Juana had paid me, and I rented it. The house’s main appeal for me was that it was on the other side of town, as far away as possible from my mother-in-law.

  Father Palacios had told me about the bachelor Alonso Quijano at Doña Juana’s first supper party. He had been a rich landowner and a distant relative of Doña Catalina who went mad, Esquivians said, from reading too many chivalry novels, and in his old age he regained his sanity, ending his life as a friar. The room that Don Alonso had used as his library became my writing room. It was the first time in my life that I’d had a room that was mine to use exclusively for writing. On the library shelves there were a handful of dusty novels of chivalry. Marianita, an old, half-blind servant who still lived in the house, had saved them when Don Alonso’s niece, in an effort to restore her uncle’s sanity, had thrown all his books out the window and planned to burn them in the street. With the squire’s sturdy desk in front of the same window, all I needed was a chair, a quill, a pot of ink, writing paper, and the muse to shower me with inspiration.

  From the desk there was a view of endless tawny fields where lentils and chickpeas were cultivated. Sitting there every day, staring at the ochre and treeless Manchegan landscape, I indulged the fantasy that I was a well-off country squire who wrote good, but popular novels that made me prosperous. In view of my financial success, my mother-in-law had finally shut her mouth and left Catalina and me in peace. In my fantasy, my aged parents lived with us in comfort, and my wife and I were blessed with many children who were my parents’ joy in their old age.

  As I wandered through the empty, disordered rooms, I felt the presence of Alonso Quijano. The house had a large courtyard paved with smooth square stones. Huge vats for wine and olive oil were stored in a warehouse on the property that was cold even in the hottest days of summer. The vats were empty; I dreamed of a day in the near future when they would be full again. The granary, too, would be filled with wheat and barley. To the right of the warehouse there was an arched entrance to a tunnel that had been built around the time when the Moors regularly attacked Esquivias. The tunnel, which was decorated with Arab motifs and Gothic arches, led to the belly of Mount Santa Barbara. At one time, all the houses in Esquivias were connected by these tunnels. During the attacks from the Moors the families used them to make their way to the top of Santa Barbara, where they could better defend themselves.

  When Father Palacios came by to visit, he would regale me with stories about Alonso Quijano. During the cold winter nights, when we gathered around a brazier in the room on the second floor where the women did their knitting, I would read novels aloud, but sometimes Marianita, who had worked for Don Alonso from the time she was a young girl, would entertain us with stories about her eccentric master. The more I heard about Don Alonso, the more he seemed like the hero of a tale that had yet to be told.

  * * *

  With the arrival of spring, La Galatea, my first child, made its appearance in Madrid’s bookshops. I had so many expectations for my novel, hoping it would make me famous and relieve me of financial worries once and for all. I was sure my genius would finally be recognized. I knew I had penned a pastoral novel unlike the ones written by my contemporaries. No one before me, I was sure, had the audacity to write a novel that was both in prose and in verse.

  Despite some favorable notices written by my friends, who praised the book for its innovations, agonizing weeks and then months went by before it became apparent that La Galatea had failed to find a receptive audience among the readers of pastoral novels. Copies of my book languished on the shelves of Madrid’s bookshops. Each unsold volume was an accusation, a bleeding wound that threatened to shorten my life. On my rare visits to Madrid I was ashamed to walk into bookshops, for fear of being recognized as the author of a novel nobody was interested in.

  I had given up the idea of earning my livelihood by writing for the stage. If I couldn’t support my wife by writing novels, what was left for me to do? My dream of rescuing my parents from a poor and undignified old age was shattered. I began to think that it would have been better for me to die at the hands of the Turks, than to have returned to Spain and failed in such a public manner.

  In the midst of my despondency, I received the news of my father’s death. Although he had been in poor health in recent years, I expected him to live much longer, harboring the hope that, before he died, my father would see me become a success. I neglected my parents for a long time in order to pursue my dream of becoming a writer, and I failed them. It had begun to look as if I would never succeed at anything I did. As the eldest son, I should have entered my father’s profession to relieve my unwed sisters of the burden of supporting our parents. Mother’s worst fear had become a reality: I had become an irresponsible dreamer. My grief was bottomless. I thought it would be better to die so that Catalina could begin a new life. She was young, beautiful, and a woman of property. It would not be long before a more deserving man asked for her hand in marriage. What right did I have to ruin her life too?

  I abandoned myself to the ways of Bacchus. I took to drinking at the tavern of Don Diego Ramírez, and ignored all obligations to my wife. Hoping I would at least have luck at the card tables, I became a gambler, like my father; I practically lived in the disreputable taverns where the working women had long blond hair and green eyes, and were pure descendants of the Visigoths.

  One morning I woke up with a hangover that felt like nails being hammered into my temples, only to hear my mother-in-law screaming in the yard: “Are you awake yet, Don Miguel de Cervantes? I want our neighbors to know how you spend your days drinking and gambling what’s not yours to gamble away, and telling tall tales to the old men of Esquivias! I want everyone to know that you return home drunk every night, expecting to find supper ready for you; and if your wife tries to talk to you, you reply, Don’t distract me. I can’t be interrupted; I’m writing a sonnet in my head for my friend Don so-and-so’s new pastoral novel.

  “Listen to me, my good neighbors! You all know me; you know I didn’t raise my daughter to take care of a cripple. Her dowry may not have been magnificent, but this moth-eaten log should be grateful that such a beautiful girl, from an old Christian family, married him. Just a few months ago, before she married this worthless scribbler, her skin was smooth as a mirror and her eyes sparkled with gaiety. She was like a rose in May, whose every petal is perfection. You deceived all of us with your Luciferian tongue, Don Miguel! All that talk about how La Galatea, the most abominable pastoral novel ever penned, was going to be so popular; how it was going to sell more books than eggs are fried every day in our kingdom
; how your fame was going be so great that our magnificent King Philip himself would come to visit our home. Well, I’ll become a duchess before you earn a maravedí writing anything. Next time try writing a novel with your left hand, maybe you’ll do better that way!”

  Thinking she had stopped, I got up from bed and reached for my chamber pot to relieve my bladder. I was in the middle of this when my mother-in-law started up again: “I’m not through with you yet, you miserable cripple! Look how I have aged in less than a year since you married my treasure. I walk about as if I carry a loaded camel on my back. Know this, in case you have any illusions of the kind in your diseased head: if I were to die today, I would not leave you even a rotten egg!”

  When I again thought she had run out of insults, she continued: “Mark my words, Catalina. And you too, my good neighbors. This crippled scribbler will end up like my great-granduncle Alonso Quijano who, as we all know, went mad from reading all those chivalry novels.”

  I waited for a while after she stopped her harangue before I went to the kitchen for a cold drink of water to soothe my parched throat. Catalina was kneading dough for bread. She lowered her eyes and said, “Miguel, I’m so embarrassed. Now all our neighbors know about our problems.” She left the kitchen rubbing her hands and crying.

  The old days in the Algerian bagnio began to look like an oasis of tranquility to me. And just when I thought my life could not get worse, I returned home one afternoon in an inebriated state and found Catalina in the front parlor, cradling an infant. An older woman I did not recognize, and who looked like a domestic, sat in the parlor.

  With humid eyes, Catalina raised the child and offered it to me. “Miguel, this is Isabel, your daughter,” she said. “Ana de Villafranca has sent Isabel so that you can meet her.”

  I was astounded. I had no idea Ana had been pregnant with my child when I left Madrid. Had she known all along and kept it a secret? I felt brutally awakened, as if I had been drenched with a bucket of icy water.

  Catalina got up from her chair and placed the infant against my chest; I secured her with my good hand. I stared at the tiny girl in disbelief. She smelled like a mug of fresh milk scented with rose water. Her head was uncovered: I recognized Ana’s raven hair. But her agate eyes were unmistakable: they were large and brilliant and danced with excitement like the eyes of the Cervantes. Her clothes were new, and she wore knitted boots. With her chubby little hands, Isabel grabbed my beard, pulled it, and smiled. “My daughter,” I murmured, fighting tears.

  “Señora María,” Catalina said, nodding in the direction of the woman sitting in the parlor, “is Isabel’s wet nurse. Ana sent word that we could keep the child for a few days, if we want to. Without waiting for your permission, I’ve taken the liberty and I’ve asked Señora María to stay here while Isabel is visiting us.” Catalina held out her arms so that I would return my daughter to her.

  During Isabel’s stay in our house, not once did Catalina have words of reproach for me. I stayed home, resisting the temptation to go out to get drunk. Catalina embraced Isabel as if she were her own child. Her maternal instincts should not have surprised me: Catalina had helped her mother rear her two brothers. She bathed Isabel with great tenderness, fed her porridge, and sang her to sleep. While the child slept, Catalina knitted bonnets, boots, gloves, and scarves for my daughter.

  After Isabel went back to Ana, an uncanny hush settled on our home. For a few days, her crying and guttural sounds had brought happiness to the house and made it feel full of life.

  Catalina moved out of our chamber. From then on, anything I said to her was met with silence. Once more, the taverns beckoned to me, as places where I could forget my circumstances. One night, as I staggered into our parlor, I found Catalina sitting near the brazier. Other than the glow of the brazier, one taper on a table provided the only illumination. I was too drunk to talk, so I began to totter in the darkness in the direction of my chamber. Catalina called my name with an anger that chilled my entire body. I turned around and saw her, taper in hand, following me. I entered my chamber and Catalina followed me. I threw myself on the bed and closed my eyes.

  “You can pretend to go to sleep, Miguel. But drunkenness has not made you deaf. Listen to what I have to say because this will be the last time I will utter these words. I’m your wife by the law of the church, and in the eyes of our Lord, but I will never again be a wife in the conjugal bed. I could not bear to lie with a man who abandons a woman with his child; a man who seduces another woman and marries her when he knows that another woman carries his child.”

  I turned around. “Please, Catalina, I beg you to stop. When I married you I did not know Ana was pregnant with my child. I swear it on my father’s grave. May our Lord Jesus Christ strike me dead this instant if I’m lying to you.”

  “That may be true, Miguel. Regardless, you have destroyed my trust in you. May God forgive me for what I’m about to say to you: I will never bear you a child. You already have a beautiful daughter and you must devote yourself to being a good father. I will treat Isabel and love her as if she were a child of my own flesh. But I could not bring a child of mine to this world, a child who would have for a father a drunk without scruples; a weak man who cannot take care of his family because wine and gambling are his true masters. I will live with you until the day I die, Miguel, and I will be by your side in illness and misfortune, and while to the rest of the world we’ll continue to be a married couple, as a bond created by God cannot be dissolved by man, from now on—and I’m a woman who keeps her word—you have no claims on me.”

  Through my tears I saw her walk out of the chamber and close the door, leaving the room in complete darkness. Catalina and I never slept together in the same bed again.

  * * *

  All I had left were my dreams, which no one could strip me of. I would be like Christopher Columbus: no matter how crushing my failures, I would not, I could not, stop dreaming. It was at this time that I began to conceive of a novel, not a pastoral or chivalric or picaresque novel, but a new kind of novel, about a man who in many ways was like Alonso Quijano, like my father, like myself; a man who personified the age in which I lived; someone like Columbus, a man of humble origins, who dared to be an individual at a time when men like him were only allowed to have small aspirations. My hero would be a man who believed he was as deserving of human dignity as any nobleman; a man who would break away from all the others who had come before him, just as Columbus had, as all dreamers had from the beginning of history; a man who dared to be different; who, like Alonso Quijano, lived his life outside the imprisoning conventions created by society; who would not be afraid to be considered mad; a man who embodied the qualities of a new kind of gentleman; who was as much a soldier as a man of letters; who understood that the ancient relationship between the common man and the prince was obsolete; a man, a true gentleman, who could relate to the suffering of other human beings; who would help create new ideals to aspire to; who knew that good deeds and admirable actions, a kind heart and fairness for all, were more important than privilege and birth.

  My new hero would exemplify Castiglioni’s ideal of the courtier: a man who believed he was capable of dominating the world and forging his own destiny. In many ways, Alonso Quijano had been that kind of man. From the moment I set foot in his library, and took a look at the empty shelves that had once been filled with novels, and I sat at his desk and looked out the window at the endless plains of La Mancha, I knew I could not escape the pull of Alonso and of that inhospitable, waterless place, where the fields were made not of sand dunes, like the Algerian desert, but of pebbles and rocks; a place that seemed to have been formed to shatter the dreams of dreamers like Alonso, like me.

  As I sat at his desk, for hours that turned into days, for days that ended with nights that felt like the very light of life was being extinguished, I understood the desperation with which Alonso Quijano must have longed to escape from a place where nothing ever happened, where people were afraid to grow w
ings and fly away. It was as if I started metamorphosing into Alonso Quijano, becoming his double, just as I was sure that I, too, had my double someplace on earth, at this very moment, and would have one—no, not one, but legions of them, in the future, for centuries to come—who thought and felt and dreamed as I did.

  * * *

  Three years of marriage were enough for me. I never stopped loving Catalina, but perhaps, like Alonso Quijano, I was meant to be a bachelor, after all. For three years I’d felt as if I had been sentenced to the gallows. I prayed to escape from my marriage as desperately as I’d prayed to be liberated from the Algerian bagnio. It was as if the creativity that had flowed in my veins all my life had dried up after I’d arrived in Esquivias.

  From a friend who passed through town on his way to Sevilla, I heard there were openings in my beloved city for tax collectors of the crown. My friend said he knew someone who would help him secure a position. “Why don’t you come along?” he asked. Then he added, “I will intercede with my friend to help you find work too.”

  I didn’t need any other argument to convince me to leave for Sevilla: I was ready to go. I did not care that tax collection was one of the few official jobs open to Jews at the time, that taking such a job would be an acceptance on my part of the impurity of my blood. I was certain that if I did not leave Esquivias, without the slightest delay, it would not be long before I, like Alonso Quijano, went mad.

  Once again, I would begin a new life. Middle-aged, weary, disillusioned, a complete failure, I nonetheless remained ever the dreamer: I could not help but hope that better times were ahead. So I fled Esquivias, abandoning my good Catalina—not an unreachable or imaginary love, but my flesh-and-blood wife—and I left the only house I had ever been able to call mine.