Don Luis fell silent and stared out the window at a parched garden. I tried to distract him with my usual gossip, but he remained unresponsive. Now and then he nodded to indicate he was listening. I felt sorry for him. Life’s tragedies make equals of us all.
As I got up to leave, the hand that shook mine was cold and clammy. It’s like shaking hands with a dead man, I thought.
“I’m glad to see you, Pascual,” he whispered, becoming a little more animated. “I’m afraid I’m not good company these days. But if you can bear to be around me, do come to visit again. It will comfort me to see you, even if I talk little.”
* * *
My beloved mother died, after a short illness that took her in a matter of days. My father had passed when I was still a child, and I had lived the rest of my life spared by tragedy. If there was any purpose to my life, it was to support my mother and her sister. My mother was barely in the ground when Aunt María announced she was packed and ready to go to Jaén, to spend her last days close to another of her sisters. I was relieved the morning I put her in a carriage going south, but when I returned to the empty house it was as inhospitable as a mausoleum.
My grief drew me closer to Don Luis. It comforted me to visit him after I left work at night. He seemed to tolerate my visits. He still walked and ate and talked, like any other man, but he was in another world most of the time. I no longer went to see him out of morbid curiosity; it had been a long time since I had extracted from him any news about the important people he knew. It was hard to admit, but he was the only person I was close to.
Don Luis began to talk about a novel he was planning to write. I was surprised because he had never shown any interest in writing novels. During one of my visits, he said: “Pascual, I need to keep occupied. There are those who enjoy doing nothing, but I’m not that kind of person. As you know, I’m devoted to poetry, but nowadays after I’ve read a few verses I don’t know what I’m reading. I’ve been dreaming about writing a novel since I was a student. Perhaps the time has come to attempt it.”
“What wonderful news,” I said. “May I ask, if it’s not too much of an impertinence, what it is about?”
“Oh, I only have sketches for a few characters.” He paused. “My main character is based on Rodrigo Cervantes. Yes, Miguel’s progenitor.”
He had not mentioned Cervantes’s name in a long time. In 1596, I’d heard that Miguel Cervantes had left his occupation as a tax collector. By my calculations, he had been working in that capacity for almost ten years. When I heard the news I thought: That’s the end of him. May God help this pitiful man who carries a cloud of misery over his head, wherever he goes. The following year I was astonished to hear he was incarcerated again because more serious discrepancies had been discovered in the books he had kept during his years of service to the crown. I had kept all this to myself. It seemed that for Don Luis it was as if Cervantes had already died and turned to dust.
“Pascual,” he said, breaking my recollection, “how would you like to work for me as an amanuensis? I’m looking for someone who will live in the house.”
“It would be the greatest honor of my life, Don Luis,” I was quick to respond. When he began to talk about monetary compensation for my duties, I could no longer hear what he was saying. Even in my wildest dreams, it had never occurred to me that one day I would be living in one of the great houses of Spain. How I wished my mother were alive so that she could rejoice in my great good fortune.
Working at the Council of the Indies, after Don Luis left, had become insupportable. Without him as my superior, I had returned to the bleak life he’d rescued me from when he put me in charge of spying on Cervantes. I did not have the connections to advance myself in my career as a civil servant. Any position I could obtain as a government bureaucrat would be as deadening as the one I had served in for many years at the council; it would have meant moving to another gloomy building, working with dismal people, and shuffling different stacks of dusty documents. But I needed to work. Don Luis could choose not to work, but I needed a salaried position in order to survive.
There was something else: I had turned thirty-five years old and was still a bachelor. I had become acquainted with a group of hidalgos who frequented the gambling houses, where sex of both kinds could be procured for money. The king’s secretary, Antonio Pérez, was a prominent member of that coterie.
I couldn’t tear myself away from the life I had discovered, anymore than I could stop hair from growing on my face. I rejoiced in the exquisite pleasures of the body, despite the church’s condemnation of any kind of sensory pleasure as immoral. The king’s secretary was shielded by his association and closeness to our monarch; but it was only a matter of time before insinuations would be made about me, and I was in danger of being apprehended and accused of having abandoned my interest in women and lusting after men. I was in grave danger of being burned at the stake, or assassinated in a dark alley like the notorious poet Álvaro de Luna. Early in the reign of Philip II he had begun publicly executing sodomites. Although these executions were infrequent, not a year went by that a well-known sodomite wasn’t burned in a pyre. And the men who met this fate were not members of the nobility, but men like me. Marriage was the best way to avoid any accusations, but for me, getting married would entail another kind of death. Don Luis’s offer was providential; working for an important man of irreproachable character, and being part of his household, might be what would save my life.
* * *
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 bro
ther 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 h
idalgo 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.”
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