by Maria Duenas
As for Cabeza de Vaca’s question regarding his personal interest in some particular author, Daniel knew he could not lie. He was aware that it was not in his interest to speak openly about Sender; that he would be better off sticking to generic writers and abstract themes. But Fontana and he had considered this scenario and agreed that, in the event that Daniel was corralled, deception was too dangerous an option.
“I must admit that there are some authors in whom I have a particular interest, although they are all worthy of . . .”
Cabeza de Vaca raised an eyebrow, and Daniel knew there was no way out.
“Ramon J. Sender, sir.”
“Frankly interesting . . . In other words, what you intend to do is to follow Sender’s footsteps in Spain so as to afterwards research his literary production.”
“That is so, more or less,” Daniel acknowledged in a somewhat quieter tone.
“Then, and correct me if I’m mistaken: you don’t contemplate reading the author’s works while in Spain?”
He stirred in his chair, crossed his legs, then immediately uncrossed them. This was going further than he and Fontana had foreseen at Pitt.
“It’s not possible, sir.”
“Would you be kind enough to explain the reason?”
Daniel again changed posture and readjusted the knot of his tie, which was choking him.
“It’s hard to come by his books in Spain,” he finally admitted.
“Hard?”
“Impossible, rather.”
“For some reason in particular?”
Daniel cleared his throat and swallowed hard.
“Censorship, sir. Ramon J. Sender’s books are forbidden.”
“And do you think that is correct?”
Daniel noticed that his mouth was dry. His head, however, was boiling.
“Do you find this to be correct or not, Mr. Carter?” the professor repeated.
Daniel knew that he was taking a gamble and that this could be the end of it all: of his stay in Spain, of his scholarship, of his still-incipient professional career. But he took a risk because he felt he had no other alternative.
“No, Professor. I don’t think it’s correct.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t think voices should be silent.”
“Silenced.”
“Excuse me?”
“We are not talking of personal decisions but rather of external impositions, right or wrong?”
“Yes, sir,” he whispered.
He did not want to show that at that moment the only thing that really mattered to him was not being kicked out of there.
The professor’s reaction took a couple of seconds to surface, and in the interim, while they held each other’s gaze, Daniel’s mind passed in hasty sequence through the worst scenarios. Fontana had been mistaken: trusting this colleague of his had been a terrible decision; he would never work on Sender’s oeuvre; the Fulbright Commission would be informed and his scholarship rescinded, and he would have to return to Pittsburgh shortly thereafter. Good-bye to Madrid and his dream of traveling throughout Spain. Perhaps he should have listened to his parents and given up on his absurd dream of specializing in a foreign language. Perhaps his professional destiny was really in law school or in the emergency ward of some hospital. Or in the Heinz factory, loading trucks with ketchup and cans of beans until his weary body gave out.
“Very well, Mr. Carter, very well . . .” the professor finally declared, a faint mocking smile lingering in the corner of his mouth. “In spite of the uncomfortable moment that I have made you go through, I have no doubt that you will end up being a good Hispanist once you’ve consolidated your command of the language and moved forward with your research. For the time being you seem to be well on track, with firm opinions and an evident determination.”
Daniel was about to gasp in relief, to loosen up and finally feel safe.
“But you still have an arduous road ahead of you,” the professor added. “And for this reason, as a first step and before you embark on your mission, we must fulfill some formal requirements.”
Once again he felt somewhat alarmed but was sure that the worst was behind him. The professor, meanwhile, continued to elaborate in his well-measured speech.
“So that we cover all the academic requirements, we’re going to enroll you in two courses. The first will be Visigothic Paleography, with a special emphasis on Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beatus of Liebana. I teach it on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at eight o’clock in the morning. The second, Comparative Analysis of the Silos Glosses and Saint Emilianus Glosses, Thursdays and Fridays from seven thirty to nine in the evening.”
The young American began searching for phrases in his half-baked Spanish that would exempt him from having to study something so absurdly alien to his interests.
“Excuse me, sir, but I . . . well, my intention—”
“Although, you will be exempt from attending the courses of either of these subject matters without being prevented from obtaining an A if I have you back here next month to inform me how your sojourn in Upper Aragon went, following in Sender’s footsteps.”
Daniel’s face must have shown something like stupor. Cabeza de Vaca, breaking with his exquisite iciness, burst out laughing.
He continued. “Your words are convincing, as well as the letters of recommendation that I have received from the University of Pittsburgh and the report from the Fulbright Foundation. Although, naturally, I was not ready to accept a student from my dear Andres Fontana without first reestablishing contact with him. Not out of distrust. Please understand me: I would have accepted any request of his without any hesitation whatsoever. But I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to learn how my old colleague was doing and to find out how he has fared all these years.”
Despite being overcome by a wave of relief, Daniel suddenly realized that he didn’t know much about his professor’s past either. Their conversations had almost always centered on the present and, especially, the future: plans, projects, and objectives. The little he knew about Fontana was confined to classrooms and lectures, to the historic and literary past of his country.
“It was moving, believe me. I never learned of his whereabouts since we finished our studies in 1935. I knew that he intended to spend a semester as a lecturer at some American university, but I was unaware if he’d ever returned, if he’d fought in the war or not, if he’d been killed, or if he’d survived.”
“He never returned to Spain,” Daniel stated.
“I know, I know. Now I know everything. I’ve found out what that miner’s son’s perseverance and drive ended up forging. He was never intimidated by us, all the young gentlemen teeming about the place. I always admired that in him: the self-confidence, his ability to adapt to everything without ever losing the perspective of who he was or where he came from. It’s been a great pleasure to be in touch with him again. And he’s sent me a message for you. Here, transcribed word for word.”
He handed Daniel a folded sheet of paper containing a handful of simple words in English. Let him have his way, Daniel read to himself. So that was what his teacher advised.
“Contrary to what you two schemed in the very beginning, I pledged to Andres Fontana not only to act as your nominal supervisor to fulfill the formal requirements of your scholarship, Mr. Carter, but to truly help you in any way within my power.”
“I’m most grateful, sir.”
Cabeza de Vaca continued talking as if he hadn’t heard him.
“Unlike what you thought at the beginning, deep down your project pleases me. Or I’m going to make an effort for it to please me, to be more precise. You will soon find out why.”
He then leaned sideways, grabbing something that was not visible from behind the walnut desk. It turned out to be a crutch that the professor skillfully adjusted beneath
his right arm while making an energetic effort to stand up. Only then was Daniel able to see his injured body.
“The war took my girlfriend, two brothers, and a leg. One needs to be very strong to overcome something like that and look at the future without anxiety. I wasn’t able. I lacked the courage and, because of this, took refuge in the past. I withdrew all the way back to the Middle Ages,” he said, collapsing into the chair once more and dropping the crutch on the floor. The resounding noise of the wood against the tiles didn’t seem to faze him. “Between codices, the chronicles, and cantigas I found the peace that memories and nightmares deprived me of.”
“I understand . . .” Daniel whispered, although he didn’t understand at all.
“But my coping mechanism is by no means the most sensible. That is why I think I must make an effort to understand and help whoever insists on moving forward. You know, I’ve been considering this matter since I reestablished contact with Fontana. And although I never pictured myself defending this position, I’ve reached the conclusion that this country would be heading in the wrong direction if all intellectuals hid as I did in the distant past. I think we need to move toward the future and to listen to the voices of those who survived the atrocity of our civil war: those who stayed and those who left; those who are still here and those who are in exile.”
“Are you referring to exiles like Sender, sir?” Daniel asked doubtfully.
“Exactly. The only ones who have been silenced forever are the dead. The rest, even in the distance, still remain sons of the fatherland, keeping its memory alive and ennobling our language with their words. To ignore them and to perpetuate the painful division that separates those outside from those inside will only stunt our country’s intellectual development even more.”
“That is also how Dr. Fontana sees it, Professor,” Daniel ventured to say.
“And that is how I believe we should all start thinking around here. To consider those who can’t or don’t want to come back as an essential part of our culture is, like it or not, a moral responsibility. So count on me in your efforts. I’ve got a feeling there won’t be much I can do for you, but here I am, just in case. I only ask you in exchange to keep me abreast of your progress.”
“I will do as you ask. Thank you very much, Professor” was all Daniel managed to reply.
“I’ll be waiting for you,” Cabeza de Vaca concluded, extending his hand but not getting up again. “You have before you a heroic monarchist soldier and a ‘Knight Wounded in the Noble Service of God, the Fatherland and the Charters.’ A dreamer who didn’t have the luck of his mentor, swallowed a tall tale of the great crusade, and didn’t know how to get out of the way at the right moment.”
Daniel firmly shook his hand, transmitting a mixture of admiration and bewilderment.
“I will return in a month’s time, sir, I promise.”
“I hope so. And one last thing before you leave. You probably don’t know the film Welcome, Mr. Marshall!, right?”
“No, I don’t know it.”
“It was released several years back, in 1953, if I’m not mistaken. It is both amusing and distressing. See it if you get the chance, and then you can reflect upon it. Try not to do the same thing your compatriots do in the film. Respect this nation, young man. Don’t pass before us without stopping to try and understand who we are. Don’t rely on the anecdotal; don’t judge us simplistically. We trust you, Daniel Carter. Don’t let us down.”
Chapter 15
* * *
The calendar moved through autumn; Halloween went by with its witches, scarecrows, and pumpkins. Then came a period of rain, and in tandem my mood also clouded over.
The cause was no longer a continent and an ocean away, but much closer: in my immediate surroundings and my daily work; in the morass that Professor Fontana’s output had become with the passage of time. The texts I was working on dated from the sixties; some were typed, but the majority of them were still in longhand. My problem, however, was not with the writing itself but rather its content: the lack of coherence between the texts; the gaps and absence of a core. As if large chunks of information were missing, as if someone had ripped entire sections right out.
Moreover, the subject matter of the texts was quite different from that of previous decades. Spanish authors, the literature of exile, and so many other recurring themes appeared to have been gradually dropped after Fontana settled in California in the early sixties. Where there once were novelists, poets, and playwrights, I now found the names of explorers and Franciscan monks whose lives and actions I didn’t know anything about; old chronicles about the Spaniards in that northern fringe of New Spain; along with the names of prisons and missions.
Trying to find any coherence in all that information had been driving me crazy all week long. Doubts kept piling up until Thursday afternoon, when I finally decided to turn to someone whom I perhaps should have sought out from the start. Before doing so, I stopped at Rebecca’s office to be pointed in the right direction.
“Try in Selma’s Café, next to the plaza. He usually goes there every afternoon if he’s in town.”
On leaving Guevara Hall I found the weather unsettled and the surrounding area agitated. People were revving up, according to what some students told me, to start a demonstration against the construction of the mall in the area of Los Pinitos, that spot of peace and green that I’d discovered weeks earlier after seeing the photos of Andres Fontana in the conference room.
The Santa Cecilia Chronicle and the university paper devoted increasing coverage to the issue: feature articles, op-eds both for and against, letters to the editor. The major opposition to the project evidently had originated in the university, and among its visible leaders was my student Joe Super, the professor emeritus from the History Department who on the first day of class had mentioned the Franciscans and their missions. The reasons were convincing: it would be an environmental disaster and possibly even an illegal use of that land, since the legitimacy of its ownership, according to what Rebecca and Daniel had told me, was not altogether clear. It was not private property, nor was it public, despite the fact that the local authorities were in charge of its upkeep. As a result, a medley of interests had created a platform against the project.
I noticed that some of the students were carrying signs or megaphones, and farther afield there was a youth with Rastafarian dreadlocks and an enormous drum. The event had not started yet, but there was already quite a bustle. I came across cars sporting flags and honking their horns as a sign of support. I made my way through a group of elderly ladies, one of whom tried to sell me a bright-orange T-shirt with protest messages emblazoned on it, while another handed me a sticker with simply the word NO!
I managed to cut through the crowd and reached my destination zigzagging between the demonstrators; in fact, I wasn’t going too far. My objective was a café that looked as if it had been open for a few decades, a place I’d passed by a dozen times but had never entered. And there, next to the window facing the street, I found him.
“I’ve come looking for you.”
“What a great honor,” he said, standing up to greet me. “I was watching you wend your way through all those nuts but didn’t imagine you were coming to see me. Have a seat. What’s up?”
On the table, in front of an old leather armchair, he had a laptop, a few books, and a pad full of notes and doodles. I wasn’t too sure it was the most appropriate moment; perhaps my invasion had been somewhat abrupt. It was he, though, who’d offered to give me a hand with Fontana the evening we shared an improvised dinner at Rebecca’s place.
“Are you sure I’m not interrupting you, Daniel?” I said as I removed my raincoat. “We can talk some other time if this is not a good moment.”
“Of course you’re interrupting me. And you have no idea how grateful I am at this hour, after a full day’s work, for a good, long interruption.”
; The place was comfortable, cozy: wooden floors and walls, armchairs strewn about, and a couple of pool tables. Behind the long empty bar, a waiter dried glasses unhurriedly while he watched a football game on a large silent screen. Almost inaudibly through the loudspeakers came Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s legendary “Teach Your Children.”
“Rebecca told me that you come here almost every afternoon,” I said while attempting to smooth my hair after the windy walk.
“During the morning I usually work out of my apartment and in the afternoons I prefer a change of scenery, to get a breath of fresh air. This is a good place; there’s practically no one here at this time of day. And the coffee isn’t too bad. Of course, it doesn’t compare to a good café con leche at a Spanish bar, but it’s better than nothing.”
He raised his mug as if to catch the waiter’s attention and motioned without words that he bring another one for me.
Among his books I discovered some I’d read by fits and starts when my sons were small. Back then I used to carry large tote bags in which the most unexpected things would accumulate: Playmobil toys mixed in with packs of Ducados cigarettes, a couple of bananas, pens without their caps, half-eaten ham and cheese sandwiches. And some book or other. Always a book that I’d dip into as best I could while David came down the slide or Pablo kicked his first ball around or we sat in the pediatrician’s waiting room. In time I quit smoking and improved my purchasing power, and my kids forgot about firefighters and cowboys, asking instead for video games and the freedom to come and go as they pleased. And those tote bags turned into authentic leather bags, fashionable, the real thing. I was unable, however, to rid myself of the desire that they be large and almost always contain a novel.