February 1643
I awoke this morning with a feeling of great exultation. Ana accepted me yesterday. She will speak to the abbess about leaving the convent. I shall have a wife who has already shown to me goodness of character and curiosity of mind, and I do believe that she will cherish me, as I will cherish her.
I shall be blessed to have her as my partner. I have even thought to times ahead when we might add a child to our happy home. Though she is not as young as many new brides, there is no reason that we might not be blessed with children. Of course, we have not yet spoken of such things, but I am sure a woman of her heart would wish for such a gift from God.
I saw my life in shrunken circumstance. My vision of myself, my profession, my interests, even my dream of the New World, did not include what most men desire. Now she expands it all for me—wife, true home, hope of children—and I see how barren my existence truly was.
March 1643
We are to marry in two weeks’ time. Ana made an agreement with the Madre Superior that she will accompany and assist me in my visits to the convent. I believe this greatly mollified the good sisters, as they will sorely miss my Ana.
13
ANA
The recollection of her joy at Emilio’s proposal now mingled with guilt and sorrow. Seeing his record of their conversations, she wondered how she had forgotten his early reference to travel, and her seeming implication that she would be open to it. She saw now that throughout their lives together, she had not understood him as well as she had believed. Though her ignorance of his great desire to go to the New World had been innocent, she mourned as lost the better love she might have given had she seen his dream. Her lack of comprehension seemed to her a sign of her imperfect love for him, while her husband’s concealment revealed a purer love. More than this, she knew that he forgave for that which she had unknowingly but irrevocably taken from him.
The burden of this new comprehension, along with the day’s events, would continue to rob Ana of sleep, and so she allowed herself to continue, to see whether Emilio’s further reflections would bring her solace.
14
Emilio
October 1643
My life is full as a married man. We have settled into a comfortable routine. Ana assists me not only at the convent but also in my preparations and in visits with other patients when it is seemly. She appears to derive great satisfaction from this work, and we usually spend quiet evenings together, conversing and reading, with occasional visits to the theater or the homes of family and friends.
Though others might not credit it, I find myself lucky not to have married a much younger woman, for I understand that they can be petulant and overly demanding of one’s attention. Ana has maturity and enough of her own interests that, even with my work, I still have time to study, read, and reflect. I do not have as much time as previously, of course, and I have quite neglected my readings on the New World. I must take up my task again, with an eye to practical understanding. I still hope we shall sail next summer, though I have been reluctant to broach the subject with Ana. This is unworthy of me, for if we are to go, the preparations must begin shortly after the new year.
Though we have been united in hope, Ana is not yet with child. We know that it is far too soon to worry, but I see the monthly disappointment in her face. I must admit that now I have come to worry that she will come with child, for how could she withstand a long sea voyage in that condition?
January 1644
I had not yet told Ana, as I wished to delay until the last possible moment, to see whether she would conceive a child, but I had been offered and tentatively accepted a post as a ship’s physician, to leave for New Spain in May. I had hoped that Ana would accompany me on the trip. Now, however, it seems that once again my place has been usurped by another, this time a cousin of the captain, who nevertheless assures me that next year he will hold a place for me.
October 1644
Ana’s sister-in-law, Margarita, has had a child, a beautiful girl who has been christened Juliana. To see their joy is a grace, and my Ana loves the child most dearly, but I perceive the pain she tries to hide when she holds the child of another.
January 1645
Ana is with child, and I must confess that my feelings are somewhat mixed, though I show only my joy to her. She is having a hard enough time with the pregnancy, and I would not add to her worries. Still, I cannot help but feel some disappointment, for though I had not yet secured a position, I had held on to the hope that someone might need a ship’s physician. Now there is no question of our sailing for the Indies. The voyage would be much too difficult for her in this condition. It now seems fortuitous that I delayed in telling Ana of my wish. She would be sorry to let me down. I tell myself that a journey is a small matter compared with the birth of a child, but it is a dream I have held close these many years. Perhaps next year we will travel to the New World with our son.
February 1645
A most incredible tragedy has struck the home of Ana’s brother! I cannot fathom how it could be true. It is but another scene in the sad play our beloved country seems destined to enact.
March 1645
Sebastián’s wife is no more, and, though much of Madrid speaks of it, he will not utter her name or allow it to be spoken in his household. Her portrait has been removed, and a servant whispered to me that Sebastián has had it destroyed. It is as though life has turned to nightmare. I will not try to write of it here, for doing so would seem to place it in the realm of the comprehensible.
April 1645
Ana miscarried three weeks ago. Her grief was palpable and sharp, mixed with the lingering horror at her sister-in-law’s death. I do wonder whether that malign event did not contribute to the loss of our child. Now my beloved wife is simply quiet, and only two or three times a day do her eyes fill with tears. We know that our suffering is slight relative to what others have had to endure, but weighing sorrows does not lessen pain.
I have seen other women miscarry, and I have always been shocked by their level of grief for a child unseen. Still, that the mother would develop a loving bond with the child beneath her heart should not surprise. What I did not notice, but which I now do not doubt was there, was the sorrow of the fathers. Surely if I had looked into their eyes, I would have seen the torment I now feel. But society does not expect this from a man. Yet just as his wife has done, surely a father has held his child in his mind’s eye, has seen him laugh and play and cry, has seen his son come to him for comfort from life’s pangs, has seen him grown into a man, married and with children, and cradling his own father in his arms when he is old and dying. What can he now imagine?
July 1645
Ana is much improved in mind and body, though I cannot seem to shed my sorrow. Perhaps that is because she now looks forward with hope to another child, and I have not had the heart to discourage her in this. Sometimes I wish that I were not a physician, because then I would not know that the strain that Ana’s body has already suffered reduces her chance of conceiving and bringing a baby to full term.
15
ANA
Ana awoke to a confusing tangle of memory, made fresh by her reading of the night before and magnified in discordant dreams: the joy of her wedding day, the terror of Margarita’s death, but most of all the grief of her own childlessness, and what she now realized was her blindness to the depth of Emilio’s suffering. There had been not only the heartbreak of her miscarriage, but the misery of seeing each month’s hopes destroyed, only to be built up again, then end again in sorrow.
Although for many years Ana had told herself that she had accepted God’s will in not gracing Emilio and her with children, that did not mean that melancholy never overtook her. Every few months, she found herself thinking about how old their child would have been. When she was walking through the city streets, she looked for children, and in more recent years those bordering on adulthood, to see what their child might have become at this age, to imagine what m
oments of delight Emilio and she might have had. She did not deny that there would also have been difficulties to bear. Still, it seemed to her that any struggles would have been made lighter by the offsetting joys.
And what of Emilio’s dream? Where before she had felt guilt, she now felt betrayed that he had felt joy, but some disappointment, too, when he had learned that she was with child. Her recollection of his happiness was marred by what she had just learned of his ambivalent feelings.
Now, though, the events of the previous day flooded in with renewed force, perhaps because of her dreams’ reminder that misfortune and catastrophe are possible, though the mind gropes for benign explanations.
It could be that Sebastián had gone to Sevilla on business. She knew that her brother invested in ships that carried goods to the Indies and returned with payment in silver, and that such ventures had become increasingly risky as the power of Spain to dominate the seas had waned. The constant shifting of alliances and hostilities had exposed the Spanish fleets to attack by Dutch, English, and French ships. There were also the reduced payments sanctioned by some of the colonies’ viceroys, and the increasing tendency of His Majesty’s government to confiscate a portion of a returning ship’s cargo as an impromptu tax. Could it be that some such crisis in his interests had prompted Sebastián’s hasty departure?
Perhaps he was traveling in his role as arbitrista. Most of these ideamongers to the king were content to stay within the shadow of the court, but Sebastián’s honor demanded that he see the peoples and regions his designs would affect. Though he had not ventured from the peninsula to Spain’s holdings in Naples or the Indies, he had traversed all the provinces of Spain. His enthusiasm for his projects had more than once impelled him to precipitate excursions, but he had always left the particulars of his plans for Ana, and he had never taken Juliana.
If Sebastián had gone off with his daughter, that could explain his lack of communication. After all, details of his journey were usually only an excuse for his notes to her, to charge his sister with overseeing Juliana’s well-being in his absence. If she were traveling with her father, there would be no need for those instructions.
What, then, of Fernando’s frantic visit and Constanza’s tears? Ana was back where she had started and could not believe her own conjectures. They offered only empty consolation, as with the heretic whose confession has saved him from the stake but bought for him the noose.
Leaning her head back and closing her eyes, Ana saw played there again the vision of herself walking through her niece’s devastated room and Silvia’s barren one. A hasty departure could have caused chaos in Juliana’s chambers, but there seemed a savage edge to it. Silvia’s tidy nature could account for the order of her room, but not its complete evacuation. Ana opened her eyes and prayed that today a simple explanation would be revealed.
By evening, no such elucidation had presented itself. Her apprehension, more than her day of ministrations to the ill, had taken its toll on Ana’s strength. She fell asleep in a chair, her head upon her desk, cushioned by Emilio’s unopened journal.
The next morning Ana awoke with the dawn. Somewhere in her restless night, she had decided that she must leave immediately to search for Sebastián and Juliana. Guilt suggested that perhaps she had delayed the needed journey because of her own aversion to travel. She must be the capable woman whom Emilio had described in his journal. She must not let her fears mock his words of faith in her. She pulled out her writing paper, ink, and quill.
Esteemed Señor Monsalve,
I know that it has been a long time since we have been in touch, but my dire circumstances lead me to beg a favor of you. I understand that, from time to time, you send a carriage to Sevilla to deliver papers and other articles of importance to your business partners there. Further, I have been told that it is sometimes possible for persons to book a seat in this carriage, to the advantage of both parties.
I was very much hoping that you might have such a conveyance leaving shortly, as I find that I must make my way to Sevilla. It would be exceedingly kind of you to let me know as soon as possible whether, by chance, this is a possibility. If it is not, I shall seek other means. Believe me when I tell you that I would not impose upon your gallantry if it were not from the most urgent necessity.
Sincerely,
Ana Torres López
Widow of Emilio Cardero Díaz
She called Manuel and asked him to deliver the note immediately, giving him directions to the house. Though she was averse to it, Ana had from time to time since Emilio’s death found that she had need of calling upon some acquaintance of her husband to help her with some problem. Her husband’s kindness had left her the heiress of many persons’ gratitude. She had usually relied upon Sebastián, but some cases seemed better handled by others, and she did not like to depend on him in all things. A choice of benefactors was a paltry independence but sometimes all that a woman was granted.
The answer came more swiftly than she had dared to hope, arriving by early afternoon.
Honrada Señora Torres Lopez,
I am very grateful that I can be of service to you. Your honored husband is held in my memory with affection and respect, and any assistance I can give you is insignificant compared with the great debt I feel I owe.
As it happens, there is a carriage leaving for Sevilla tomorrow. The man who brings you this note, Señor Rojas, will be in charge of the carriage and all of the arrangements. In light of what I perceive as the sudden nature of your travel, if you have not made provision for a place to stay, I can suggest a room in the house of a Señora Nelleda. Business associates whom I have referred to the home have found it to be comfortable and practical, and Señora Nelleda to be honorable, pleasant, and a good cook. You need only inform Señor Rojas if you desire to accept my recommendation, and he will take you there.
You do not reveal the reason for your journey, but if you are in further need of aid once you have reached Sevilla, please allow me to refer you to my partner there, Señor De Ovando, who I believe was also acquainted with Don Emilio. Señor Rojas will be able to direct you there as well, should you find you wish to avail yourself of his services.
I wish you a pleasant journey.
I am Your Most Humble Servant,
Bartolomé Monsalve
Ana looked up from the note to the short, sturdy man before her.
“Señor Rojas, I am happy to meet you. I am afraid that Señor Monsalve has forgotten to mention the fare that I should pay you for the trip to Sevilla.”
“For you, there is no fare, señora. The carriage was scheduled to leave anyway, and there are already two other passengers, a priest and a young girl. I hope that you do not find it too uncomfortable to have to share the carriage.”
“On the contrary, I am most grateful that I shall be able to travel with you so soon.”
Having given Ana the particulars of when the carriage would leave and what she should bring for her comfort, Señor Rojas bid Ana farewell until the morrow. Closing the door behind him, Ana asked Clara, who was wiping imaginary dust from the large chest near the entranceway, to accompany her to her room. Ana was well aware that Clara would be curious about the activities of the day, but she had purposely kept her plans from Clara until they were set. She knew that Clara would find many objections to Ana’s traveling alone to Sevilla, with no real reason for supposing that there she would find Sebastián and Juliana.
Having reached her room, Ana told Clara of her intention, and of the arrangements she had already made. Her predictions as to Clara’s reaction had been justified, for no sooner had Ana revealed her purpose than Clara’s protests commenced. Ana half listened while beginning to lay out the things that she would need for the journey. As she offered no rejoinders to Clara’s remonstrations, the housekeeper would have been justified in assuming that this argument would follow the course of so many others, and that she had a tolerable chance of wearing down her mistress’s resistance through her own unrelenting pers
istence.
Here she would be proven wrong, however, for finally Ana paused in her preparations, looked into the other woman’s eyes, and said, in a voice low but firm, “I shall not be deterred in this, Clara. I feel that something is wrong. I have concluded this to my own satisfaction, and my own satisfaction is all that I am inclined to consult in this matter, that it is reasonable to believe that Sevilla is the destination to which my brother and niece are bound, and so must I be also.” Ana’s gaze remained fixed on Clara for some moments, and the housekeeper, so unused to this tone or manner from her mistress, yielded. She did not do so with goodwill, however, and the very formality of her reply was itself a rebuke.
“Very well, señora. Please be good enough to inform me what you would like me to do in preparation for your departure.”
Ana hid both her surprise at Clara’s acquiescence and the hurt she felt at the cold response. She had endeavored to appear certain in her resolve but was far from believing that her undertaking was completely rational. She knew only that she would find no peace waiting at home for word from her brother. Her journey might not afford her peace of mind, but she had reluctantly learned in her life, in part from Clara herself, that activity could calm the mind, or at least distract it, and even dull the pangs of a grieving heart.
When Ana had written to Señor Monsalve only that morning, she had not believed that her plans would take shape so quickly. Many of Clara’s objections had been her own just the previous evening. Wishing to find justification for her actions, she set out for Sebastián’s home without her usual afternoon rest, in the hope of finding something that pointed to Sevilla.
Usually she enjoyed the walk to her brother’s house just north of the Plaza Mayor. Today, however, she was insensible of any of her usual pleasures. As she approached her brother’s home with its stone facade, of which he was so proud, it took on an ominous air. She walked to the door, opened it, and stepped into the dark hallway. The cold of the flagstone floor chilled her, and she wished that she had thought to bring Manuel, or at least Constanza, with her. The dark armario, taller than she, loomed in the corner, its carved panels not reflecting but absorbing any light. She opened the paneled doors. Two of her brother’s coats hung neatly, but his sword was missing, and it was always kept in here when not in use. Still, this was hardly to be remarked upon, for, although Sebastián did not wear his sword at all times, as some gentlemen saw fit to do, he would certainly have taken it with him on a journey away from the city.
The Lines Between Us Page 6