by Mary Morris
Vincent has also written to the Office of Records in Andalusia and here he has learned that Federico de Torres, the son of a wealthy doctor from Gerona, traveled with the famed Coronado in 1540 and had been among the first white men to lay eyes on the Grand Canyon. Vincent tries to imagine what his ancestor saw—that enormous fiery trench in the ground. And then he returned to New Mexico and founded this town.
This searching old records is an activity that his wife thinks of as a curious hobby, like collecting stamps or old bottles. Harmless, but also more or less pointless. Whenever they go down to Santa Fe to shop, Vincent leaves Esmeralda at one of the malls where she seems able to spend days on end while he slips into the County Clerk’s Office. The people who work there know him so well that no one even bothers to ask where he is going or why.
Jokingly they refer to him as the archivist. They nod to him and say to one another that the archivist is back. Indeed Vincent Roybal moves in the archives as freely as any librarian would. He’s learned to read the ancient scripts, the wide, rolling strokes of the pen, and decipher names and dates, land claims and marriage certificates, causes of death and minor litigations as well as any trained archivist in all of Spain and the New World. And every time he finds a new document that indicates a Roybal or a Torres has been born or died, Vincent has the pleasure of filling in a blank spot on his family tree.
Vincent puts out his cigarette. “You probably think I should get some sleep,” he says to Pascual. “But you know I can’t. It’s all because of you.” He goes back inside. Leans on the counter and stares at his family tree. He looks at the places where he is still unable to fill in the names. The spaces where entire lives can be lived. He does not know who these people might be and he does not even know why it matters so much to him.
While he spends his time in dusty archives and writes letters to the records offices in Spain and studies documents whose yellowed pages crumble in his hands, none of it has explained why four hundred years ago his ancestors decided to settle on this dried-up and distant parcel of land. And yet he knows he will never move to Orlando or San Diego or anywhere else because for as far back as anyone can remember Entrada de la Luna is the only place that his people have ever called home, and that up on the hillside in the old cemetery under the oak tree all of their bones and all of their stories are buried.
CHAPTER THREE
FRIXLANDIA—1492
Luis de Torres rises before dawn. If he is to make it to the coast by August, he must leave now. He has a long journey ahead. Though he prayed this hour would never come, at last it has. It takes all of his strength to ease himself out of the bed he has slept in for the past ten years. He is careful not to disturb Catalina. She sleeps curled up like a child, weary from weeping. Her face curves upward, her hands press beneath her chin as if in prayer.
He tries to memorize her body. The rise of her breasts, the round of her hips. The way her lush dark hair falls across the pillow. When she sleeps, she grimaces as if she has tasted lemon, furrowing her brow, her lip. Years from now these furrows will become the wrinkles of her face, but he fears he will never see her grow old. He breathes in her sweaty, pungent smell and wonders if they made love for the last time the night before. How can he leave her, sleeping like that? How can he not wake her? But it could be his death, and perhaps hers and the children’s, if he stays. It is better for him to slip away. He has heard that the ports are filled with men looking to ship out. If he is lucky, he will be among them. And if he is even more fortunate, he will return when this madness is over.
In his dressing room he pulls on his linen shirt and hose, fastens his doublet, puts on his shoes and his chaperon. In the knapsack he will carry only his woolen cape and a change of shirt along with water, bread, figs, and a hunk of hard cheese. He will buy whatever else he needs along the way. When he is ready, he tiptoes into the room where his boys sleep. The youngest, Eduardo, is only a few months old, yet already he resembles his father the most with his reddish hair, his sharp blue eyes. Catalina says they will turn brown, but more and more they have taken on the color of the sky. When Luis peers into the eyes of his tiny son, he sees his own. He is the hardest to leave.
When Catalina gave birth to Eduardo in the spring, Luis thought she would die. Her cries were so fierce and desperate, not unlike those she cried for him last night. The midwife had to tear the baby from her womb. But now he is a healthy and robust boy and Catalina has healed. He will grow up, Luis imagines, to be a fine, sturdy young man. He will not remember his father when he returns, though Luis hopes that Juan, his older son, will. Juan already takes after his mother. He has dark skin with black eyes and hair to match. His laughter is deep and his tears inconsolable. If you take the smallest of toys away from Juan, he will cry from the depths of his soul. But Eduardo is not like that. It is easy to make this little boy laugh.
Luis de Torres has left his mark on his sons, circumcising them himself with the swift slice of a barber’s blade. He cauterized the boys’ wounds with his own mouth, sucking their blood until the bleeding stopped. He never hesitated to do this anymore than a mother would hesitate to give her child her breast. Now he is sorry that he has marked them for life, but there is nothing to be done. He prays that they will not suffer because of his sins.
He runs his fingers across Eduardo’s head. He touches his face, his finger grazing the baby’s lips. Luis gazes at his two sons, breathing them in. The smell of their baby sweat, the scent of talc and milk. Catalina must have nursed Eduardo just before Luis rose. She did not want the child to awaken to his father’s departure. She did not want him to leave as she was nursing their infant son. The boys are deep into their slumber. Only the fluttering of their eyelids, the gentle rise and fall of their chests let him know that they are alive. He prays silently to keep them that way.
He stoops down one last time, kissing Juan on his sweaty brow. The boy does not stir. But as he bends to kiss Eduardo, a single tear slips from Luis de Torres’s eye, down his cheek, and on to that of his son. Years later Eduardo de Torres will claim that he still feels the burn of his father’s tear. The baby’s eyes shoot open and their blue eyes meet. Luis fears that the boy will cry out, but he doesn’t. Instead he stares at his father as if he is trying to memorize him. Then the baby smiles in that joyful way he has, closes his eyes, and settles back into sleep. That smile is one of the few things Luis will carry with him as he straightens up, breathes a sigh, and walks toward the door.
Passing the mantel, he glances at the clock whose hands go backward. It is almost five. He must go soon. Seeing the old clock sitting there gives him a pang. It is just one of the many pangs he will feel as he makes his way to the sea. No one knows why its hands go backward and the numbers too, but Luis is not sure if he can tell time any other way. His grandfather, who apprenticed with the famous clockmakers of Prague, made it. It is said to be one of the first portable clocks—one that is not attached to the wall of a church or great house. But still it is too heavy for Luis to carry on his journey. He must leave this, and so much else, behind. But he can’t think of that now.
He peers at his wife one more time. He wants to gather her into his arms, but he fears he will never have the strength to go. This is how he wants to remember her. Her face serene, tranquil with sleep. He will not think about the whiteness of her flesh, the body that has lain beside his for more than a decade, the girl he first glimpsed in the marketplace when she was only fifteen. He blows her a kiss and whispers her name. One more tear slides down his face. He licks its salt. Catalina hears the door close. She feels the swish of the wind and knows that the only man she will ever love is gone. She cries into her pillow the sobs one cries for the dead. As he walks away, he cups his hands over his ears.
Luis de Torres is not his real name. It is Yosef ben Ha Levi Halvri—Joseph, Son of Levi, the Hebrew. But he became Luis de Torres earlier that year when the Alhambra Decree called for the expulsion or conversion of all the Muslims and Jews. He converted, as did Catali
na. She has become a devout Catholic, but in secret he remains a Jew. He says his prayers, keeps the Sabbath. He will never eat pork. He cannot stay in Murcia long. He is certain that he will be discovered as have others like him. Luis speaks five languages. He has heard rumors of a young explorer, staying at the monastery of La Rábida, who is looking for an interpreter. He could be useful, Luis was told, on a voyage planned to the Far East. The explorer was searching for a western route to China and a speaker of Hebrew and Arabic would be able to negotiate with the traders they’d encounter along the way.
The deadline for the Jews who refuse to convert to leave Spain is August 3rd. His rabbi, who was among those leaving, noted the irony. On the lunar calendar that the Jews followed the date of expulsion fell on the 9th of Av. It was on the 9th of Av that the first temple was destroyed in 423 BCE. And it was on that same day in 69 CE that the second temple was destroyed. On that date in 1290 the Jews were expelled from England. And now, two hundred years later, they are to be expelled from Spain. This year the 9th of Av will fall on August 3rd. The Jews refer to it as the day God set aside for their suffering.
As he walks down the road and out of the only city where he’s ever lived, Luis de Torres doesn’t look back. His wife and children will be safer without him. Yet, even half a mile down the road, it seems as if he can still hear Catalina wail. Or perhaps it is just another wife, sobbing as she is left behind. He purses his lips and walks on.
The wind blows through the olive trees. The green olives will soon ripen. He will miss the harvest. He loves to go to the fields those few nights a year when the olives must be harvested. He loves the sound of them falling into the nets, and the hauling to the presses from which he will carry home large jugs. He wonders if he will ever again taste the savory oil that comes from these pressed fruits.
As the heat of the day rises, he begins to perspire. The sores that plague him fester. He never knows what will set them off, but now they blister on his neck and arms. Is it the sadness at his leaving or just the sweat of his brow? He does not know, but he hopes that the waters of the sea might cure him. He has heard that they can heal.
As he comes down from the hills, the paths are filled with donkeys and carts and men carrying their rucksacks. Women and children are piled into carts. Young and old, rich and poor, they trudge out of the hills, heading to the seaports and frontier towns, for they have been given only days to leave Spain. Some travel with their gold and jewels sewn into their vests and petticoats. Others swallow them. They will do whatever they can to not have them confiscated when they reach the frontier.
They have left behind fine houses and estates, horses and sheep, dresses made of damask and jewels that could shimmer on the crowns of kings. They have sold everything to Christians for a trifle. One man sold all his holdings for a donkey and a cart with which to transport his family to the border of Portugal. Luis de Torres brings only enough ducats to get him to Huelva where he believes he will find work. Along the slopes he passes those who are falling, others struggling to rise. They are thirsty and hungry and tired and old. A pregnant woman in a cart screams in labor, her insides splitting, with no one to help her. Exhausted children cling to their mothers’ hands or to the backs of wagons. An old man slumps by the side of the road, trying to sell the silver cover of the ketubah he and his wife signed when they made their marital vows.
On the hillsides sounders of hogs graze. As he walks past, the dark and ominous beasts grunt and forage. A year ago herds of goats and sheep roamed these hills. But they have been slaughtered, and black hoofed pigs brought in instead. This is how much the Spanish hate the Muslims and the Jews. They have filled the pasturelands with pigs. They eat pork to spite them. If they invite Luis into their homes, they serve ham hocks and pig knuckles, ribs and pork butt and bacon just to see if he will choke at the sight of them. This will prove that he is still a Jew. Then he will be relaxed, as the Inquisition calls it, to the torture chambers and the flames.
Luis de Torres knows the punishment for being a Jew who doesn’t actually convert but merely pretends. The Great Inquisitor has a price list and any man tortured or executed must pay for services rendered. There is a price for having your mouth burned and your face branded, another for having appendages such as hands, fingers, ears, or toes removed. Luis knows the price for the rack where bones are separated from sinew, the garrucha in which your arms are tied behind your back and you are lifted until you dangle like a despondent angel. If you are burned at the stake, your family is required to cover the cost. And of course you must pay for the room and board during your imprisonment.
As he climbs through the hills, he passes others. Moors departing in haste with their goats and children piled into a cart. An old rabbi staggers under the weight of the Torah he is carrying. The holy scrolls can never touch the ground or they will have to be buried, and Luis wonders if the old man can make it to wherever he is going. A child stands alone in a ditch, crying, and it pains Luis to walk on, but how can he take a child with him when he has left his own behind? An old Moorish woman crumples by the side of the road and he pauses to give her water. “Please,” she begs, pointing toward the sea. “Please…”
Luis gives her another sip. “Your son will come back for you,” he promises, not knowing if it is a son or daughter or even her own husband who has left her to die by the side of the road. The Moors and the Jews pour out of the hills. Hundreds, thousands of them. Along with their exodus go the spices. The hills were redolent with the cardamom and ginger, the cinnamon and turmeric that they carry away—spices that will never find their way back to Spain. He gives the old woman one more sip, wondering if it will be her last, and then he walks on.
Luis de Torres is a delicate man with fine white hands, pale skin, and reddish hair. His skin, which opens into painful sores, is his curse. Every day he bathes with olive oil and almond soap, but still his flesh curses him. Many nights Catalina rubbed his sores with soothing balms. Not once did she complain. It was his eyes that she had been drawn to. Eyes that she told him were the blue of the sea, though he had yet to see it. Because sweat made his sores worse, Luis de Torres rarely exercised. The most he ever walked was beneath the shade of the cypress trees to the office of the governor where he’d worked as a translator until all of the troubles began. He walked to work at seven in the morning, then home for lunch.
Every day Catalina prepared a meal of noodles, flavored with tomatoes and herbs, fresh meat or fish, and the vegetables that were ripe in their garden. They never ate the same meal twice. She spent her mornings in the kitchen inventing new ways to please him, and every day she did. They drank wine that they kept in ceramic barrels in the dark cave beneath their house, where it aged for years. After lunch they would lie down together, resting in each other’s arms. Often he made love to her, and they would sleep soundly for an hour or more. Then as the cool breezes of the late afternoon began to blow, he walked back to his office until evening. These were his days. This was his life. Until now.
He walks on, resting during the heat of the day. He gave too much of his water to the old woman. He must sip slowly to conserve his strength. He tries to walk in the evening, though he stumbles on the path. He rests only when the sun is at its highest and in the depths of night. He is grateful for the moon when it illumines his way.
At last he arrives at the port of Huelva where he confuses the sea with the sky. He has never seen the vastness of the water. As he sniffs the briny air, fear ripples through him. How could anyone cross this? He imagines that it goes on forever. Its blue stings his own blue eyes. Yet his sores begin to constrict. Soon they will start to heal. The docks are pungent with the odors of oily salted fish, and the ships are already full, loaded with Jews and Muslims, heading to Morocco where many will starve, or up the Dardanelles to parts unknown.
He asks a wizened quartermaster where he might find La Rábida monastery and the man tells him to go to Palos de la Frontera. It is another half-day’s walk. At La Rábida the young Ita
lian explorer is conferring with the Franciscan friars. He has finally convinced them that based on his readings of the Second Book of Esdras he can reach the Indies by sailing west. He believes that he will arrive at the Kingdom of the Great Khan and, with his letter of introduction from the king and queen of Spain, be shown the royal coffers. He will find the mines of silver and gold, and it will all be his for the taking. Then the old man points to the road south. “Keep walking,” the quartermaster tells him. “Follow the sea.”
Luis finished his last crust of bread the day before. The water bladder he’d carried with him is empty as well. He does not know if he can go on. His skin burns and his lips are parched and cracked. The sand scorches his feet; the salt air stings his sores. He walks for hours, dragging his feet. He thinks he will die before he ever sails from Spain and he will have left his wife and sons for nothing. He will die right there beside the sea. Then in the distance a rocky bluff, known as Saturn’s Rock, juts into the sky. Upon it the whitewashed walls of the monastery rise, as bleached and blistering as the sunlight itself.
Nobody reaches La Rábida by accident. Perched so high above the sea, this is not a place you stumble upon. As he stares up at it, Luis understands that anyone who comes here comes by design. From this fortress, built centuries ago at the confluence of the Tinto and Odiel rivers, the Moors defended this entire coastline. Now it is a refuge of the Franciscan monks who pass their days raising bees and making sherry.
He begins the climb. The sun beats down on him and he longs for water. It seems that with each step he will collapse. He will never make it to the top of this cliff. His mouth is so dry. As he sweats, his wounds begin to ooze again, and he fears that the friars will take one look at him and turn him away for his trouble. Perhaps they will think that he has brought a pestilence with him. Just when it seems as if he’ll never reach the monastery, after two more hours of climbing he does.