The Santa Inez was ghosting along to a slacking breeze, for at sea the wind usually dies down with the coming of night. Sailors who had the eleven o’clock watch wandered off to find a favorite spot to sleep.
“I don’t think this boil is such a harmless thing,” old Hernandez said.
“I have had no further trouble with it,” de Morales replied coolly. “It is nothing.”
“It would be wonderful to be regarded as a god,” Carlos said dreamily.
“Only if you are one,” Hernandez said after a moment of thought. “Otherwise you will be a disappointment.”
The cabin boy named Pedro, who came from a village in the foothills of the Pyrénées, chuckled. “I wonder what they would do to a man they found out was only a man and not a god.”
“Perhaps they would kill him,” old Hernandez said.
“These Indians do not kill men easily,” proclaimed de Morales. “Their weapons are suitable for fish, but not for killing men.”
“I think I would make a wonderful god,” Carlos blurted out without thinking, carried away by his fantasy.
The men looked at him as if they could not believe their ears. De Morales guffawed. Pedro grinned but not in an unfriendly way. Old Hernandez made a tutting sound like a disapproving aunt.
“Of course,” Carlos amended quickly, “it is an impossible thing. But if I were born a god, I would be a good one.”
“That is impious,” old Hernandez scolded gently. “Men at sea must not think such things.”
“I think I would be a good god too,” the boy Pedro gushed.
“I would make a better devil,” said a taciturn sailor who sat on the edge of the group listening, but up to now had put in no opinion.
A few of the men chuckled.
“It is not a laughing matter,” old Hernandez said. “When we are at sea, we must not vex God, or He will send us sea monsters or bad weather.”
An uneasy silence fell over the men. It was broken by de Morales.
“God Carlos,” he sneered. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
Carlos’s face became hard, his voice thin and sharp like a freshly stropped razor. “Carlos Antonio Maria Eduardo Garcia de la Cal Fernandez,” he said coldly. “What of it, señor?”
“There will never be a God Carlos,” de Morales said scornfully. “It is too funny to even think of.”
“This discussion has gone too far,” old Hernandez interposed quickly. “We must speak of brighter things.”
Carlos stood up, still staring hard at de Morales. “Goodnight,” he said to the other men, many of whom were squirming at the sudden tension.
As he walked away, Carlos upbraided himself for talking too much, for exposing too much of his heart to fools. Yet at the same time he was seething with a quiet rage at the mocking tone de Morales had used when he said, “There will never be a God Carlos.”
Those insulting words were still ringing in his ears when Carlos woke up in a dark spot under the overhang of the quarterdeck, where he usually slept. His heart was suppurating hate as if infected by an abscess.
Chapter 6
God Carlos: that was the mocking nickname the crew, at the instigation of de Morales, began to secretly call Carlos behind his back. But the Santa Inez was a small ship alone on a big sea, and it was easy to misread malice, malignity even, in every gesture and sidelong look.
One morning as he was strolling near the mainmast where some men were gathered talking, he heard the name God Carlos muttered in a contemptuous tone for the first time. When the men saw him, they immediately fell quiet and feigned an indifferent innocence.
Carlos walked past them, headed for his customary spot on the vessel near the bow, and though he nodded at every man with whom he made eye contact, he had to struggle to keep his face expressionless as if he’d heard nothing.
The dolphins were playing on either side of the bow as the ship cut through the small furrowed waves with a tearing sound. Carlos was in a wretched mood and throbbing with such hate that though he tried to hide what he felt, the rage shadowed his every look and gesture. On a small ship at sea there was no way to withdraw with dignity, to remove himself from the taunts and sly looks. Everywhere Carlos went he was conscious that sailors might be whispering about him, and even if they were not, the very thought that they might be was enough to make him enraged.
He particularly hated using the jardines—the seats hung over the fore and aft rails for the men to relieve themselves. He refused to sit on these during the daylight while other men were present on deck unless he could not help it. Instead, he would wait until darkness had fallen and only a skeleton crew was on watch. Then he would use the most forward jardine where he would be out of sight to anyone on the quarterdeck and barely visible to the lookout in the crow’s nest.
For the next few days, he was morose and quiet and avoided any gathering of men. He kept away from everyone with such persistence that hardly anyone sought him out for companionship and lighthearted talk. Old Hernandez was the only one who would regularly drift to where he was standing and exchange a few words with him. The boy Pedro would also occasionally wave from across the deck, and one Sunday morning he sat nearby on the bow of the ship and talked idly about the life he had lived in the foothills of the Pyrénées.
Carlos listened without a change of expression, making no remark in return no matter what the boy said. It was only because he did not wish to offend that Pedro did not simply get up and leave in the face of this impassive treatment. Instead, he stayed sitting where he was and told his story bravely as though Carlos was listening intently to every word. When he was done, the boy got up and said goodbye and ambled away.
* * *
The hideous nickname of God Carlos soon reached the ears of de la Serena and made him worry. He had once been young and hot-blooded himself, and understanding the nature of seamen well, he feared what would happen next.
But he said nothing to Carlos. And though on an impulse, he had summoned de Morales to his cabin for a chastising talk, he changed his mind at the last minute and said nothing about the conflict. Boys would be boys, and men would be men, and de la Serena only hoped that neither man would push the other too far.
The Santa Inez had been at sea now for twenty-one days, scudding to the trade winds with a bone in her teeth. Every day had been mild and glorious, with fleecy white clouds sprinkled throughout a clear blue sky. The wind blew out of the northeast at a steady fifteen knots, making perfect sailing weather. Rolling gently to a quartering wind, the Santa Inez made a susurration of contentment.
The fresh sparkling days that had followed one another in unvarying succession made the men eager to awaken in the mornings and gaze upon the splendors of the ocean. No rain fell for a whole week, and then for several afternoons came a brief shower that rinsed the salt off the men and the ship and left everyone feeling refreshed. The nights were cool, and the constellations spangled overhead with a breathtaking clarity.
It was all that a mariner could ask for, and de la Serena in his morning and evening prayers made a point of thanking God for the gentleness He had shown the ship.
One night Carlos was on the midnight watch, standing beside the compass on the quarterdeck. Around him the ship slumbered, with shadowy humps of men scattered over the deck, asleep. The wind had slackened, and the Santa Inez was barely making steerage speed.
De la Serena stepped onto the quarterdeck, cast a glance at the night sky, looking for the North Star. Then he recognized Carlos.
“Ahh, Carlos,” he greeted, “is all well with the ship?”
“All is well, señor,” Carlos said mechanically.
De la Serena stared hard at the sky and shook his head. “Beautiful, beautiful,” he said in a husky whisper. “What a pity there is no God.”
Carlos was so shocked that he could only sputter, “Señor?”
“Oh, it is a secret, naturally. Only the pope knows. And, of course, I know. There is no God.”
“But señor,�
� Carlos protested, waving at the vast, star-sprinkled heaven, “then who made all this?”
“No one. It has always been here. It is we who are new.”
“I do not understand,” Carlos mumbled. “How can you pray every day if you do not believe in God.”
“I do it to comfort my crew. But no one is listening to our prayers. Because there is no one up there,” and he jabbed a finger at the sky.
Carlos fell silent. He was not prepared to say that there was no God. That his own captain should say this to him was so unexpected that it left him speechless. He did not waste his time thinking about abstract things. Moreover, all around him were the mariner’s principal treasures—a calm sea and a clear sky—and they could not have always been there. He stared into the dark sea and felt uncomfortable.
Finally, as if he had just awakened, he said in a small helpless voice, “But, señor, your prayers are so convincing!”
“It is because of all my practice,” de la Serena sighed. “A rich man must constantly pray before others. It is expected of him. If he is poor, no one expects him to perform in public as though he were a bishop. But let him be rich, and he is forced to become a spectacle. If you are a religious man, pray that you never become rich.”
None of this did Carlos understand. He did not understand irony, so it did not occur to him that perhaps de la Serena did not exactly mean what he had just said. What troubled him most was why the older man was telling him these perplexing things.
“So, if someone calls you God Carlos, it is not a bad thing. You might as well be God, since there is no other.”
Carlos frowned and turned away in the darkness so the older man could not see his displeasure. Now it was clear to him why de la Serena was bringing up such a strange topic. He had gotten wind of Carlos’s nickname, and he was trying to make light of it.
“That is why I need a new world, so I can name part of it after me. When I die, I die forever. No one will even know that I was ever here. That fraud, that bumbler, Amerigo Vespucci, will be remembered by the generations to come because his name has been given to a continent. I knew the man. He does not deserve to have even a sandbar named after him. Yet in a planisphere that came out a few years ago, two continents—two, I say, not one—were named for him. Does that sound like the fairness one would expect in a world created by a god?”
Carlos did not know what to say, so he said nothing, but pretended to be engrossed in reading the compass by the dim light of the cresset. He rapped on the open hatch to attract the helmsman’s attention.
“Helmsman,” he barked louder than he meant to, “steer five degrees to starboard.”
“She has no steerage way,” the helmsman grumbled. “The wind is too light.”
“It will pick up with daylight,” Carlos said. “Just hold the course as steady as you can.”
De la Serena, meanwhile, was leaning over the rail of the quarterdeck and staring at the dark, calm sea that caressed the rounded hull of the ship.
After a long silence, Carlos stirred and muttered, “I do not deserve this trouble. I am a peaceful man.”
“It is the sea that vexes men’s souls and leaves them hating each other,” de la Serena murmured sympathetically.
Carlos walked over to the ampolleta, whose sand had almost run out, and stared intensely. He inverted the hourglass just as the final grains of sand tumbled out of one side, while de la Serena silently watched.
Around them could be heard the gurgling sounds of a wooden ship adrift in a calm night sea. With every slight correction of the rudder came the loud groan of wood against wood. The sails were flapping listlessly in the windless sea, and the cobwebby rigging of the ship was heavy with glittering stars.
The men had nothing more to say to each other. De la Serena said, “It is a bright night, though there is no moon.”
“Yes,” Carlos mumbled. “It is bright.”
“Goodnight, then,” de la Serena said, heading down the hatch for his private quarters.
“Goodnight, señor,” Carlos replied, flicking his gaze over the sails of the ship.
* * *
The next day, with the Santa Inez becalmed in an unusual stillness for this latitude, many of the crew spontaneously decided to swim. Several dove overboard and frolicked beside the drifting ship while one man climbed the crow’s nest to look out for sharks. Most of the men owned only the clothes on their backs, so they swam naked, some even taking advantage of the unnatural calm to wash the only pair of pantaloons and linen shirt they owned.
Carlos was off the morning watch, having been on duty from three a.m. to five, but his natural modesty inclined him not to swim. He thought that later on, if there was still no wind after darkness had fallen, he would wash his only clothes. In the meantime, he wanted to find a place on deck where he could snatch a brief nap.
He was amidships, passing a group of frolicking naked men when de Morales, who was fully clothed and had not been swimming, jeered, “Will God Carlos not go for a swim among humans?”
Some of the men laughed. Others fell eerily silent, sensing the spore of menace in the moment, that what had been spoken was not a harmless taunt, but carried a deadlier threat. It was inconceivable that such poisonous words would not be sharply answered.
Carlos stopped and slowly turned to face his antagonist. Inside him, an insurmountable rage was building, but he struggled hard to hide his true feelings.
“Do not let me hear you call me that name, señor,” he said icily. “I do not like it.”
De Morales would not let it go. He snickered. “What will you do to me, God Carlos, strike me dead?”
Words alone were an insufficient answer to such public scorn, and Carlos immediately knew that. He slapped de Morales hard on the left cheek with his open hand, snapping the other’s head violently back.
That was also unanswerable with words. De Morales pulled out his dagger, bellowed a roar of anger, and slashed wildly at Carlos.
Carlos drew his own knife, shied out of reach, and waited for his opportunity while the other flailed away, wielding his dagger like a man deranged.
One savage stroke hissed wide, and for a blink de Morales was awkwardly twisted by the momentum of his own mad swing, his side bared open and unprotected.
Seizing de Morales by the shoulder and clasping him close, Carlos lunged like a cobra and drove the knife deep into the side of the other man’s chest. The dagger sank into flesh like it was warm pudding. For a brief moment, the two men seemed locked in a deadly mating dance, Carlos gripping the knife with one hand while steadying de Morales to receive the full thrust of the blade with the other.
His eyes bursting open with shock and disbelief, de Morales slumped grudgingly, like a coyly consenting lover, into the arms of his killer, who still clutched the penetrating blade buried down to the hilt.
“Holy Mother of God! I can’t breathe!” he gasped. Blood spewed in dark, brocade-rich clumps from his mouth.
Then he fell to the deck, dead.
* * *
There was an accounting afterward of the events and words that led to this woeful incident, and an informal court of inquiry was convened and presided over by de la Serena to find out what exactly had happened between the two men to have brought matters to such a tragic end. Men on both sides testified, and although Carlos had few supporters, he had provocation and taunting to explain his behavior.
De la Serena pieced together a patchwork version of what had happened and ruled the homicide justified as self-defense. Some of de Morales’s friends and shipmates were unhappy with this conclusion, especially since Carlos admitted striking the first blow. But under the circumstances, de la Serena said ruefully, a man could have given no other reply without a severe loss of face. And though some of the men grumbled, in their hearts they knew the captain was right.
After the inquiry, there was a funeral. The body of the dead man was wrapped in a piece of sailcloth and weighted down with a few stone cannonballs taken from the four Lombard
cannons mounted in carriages on the deck.
A day after the fight, on a clear and windy morning, a brief funeral service was held aboard the Santa Inez. De la Serena read from the 23rd Psalm, all the crew attended, and after the reading, the body was ceremoniously hurled into the sea.
The body struck the calm surface with a startling splash, loud and vulgar like ejected excrement. It rolled and burrowed into the bottomless blue as the ship ghosted away in a light morning breeze. A moment later no eye could tell where it had fallen, the crinkled surface of the ocean being so vast and changeless all around the creeping vessel.
No one knew where de Morales had come from or where his family was, and since he had been unable to write, the dead man had left no identifying documents behind. It was as if he had never lived.
Carlos was branded a murderer by some of his shipmates. Others thought his action justified but excessive. De la Serena announced at the end of the inquiry that his official ruling would be entered into the log and become part of the history of the Santa Inez and this voyage.
She had been at sea now for twenty-eight days.
Chapter 7
Aneke?” Why?
That was what Orocobix, with anguish in his voice, asked the zemi propped up against the trunk of a nearby seagrape tree.
His Uncle Brayou was dying alone somewhere in the woods, and Orocobix was pleading to the zemi for mercy. But the zemi was not answering, even though it had answered others in the past.
For example, his mother swore that one evening when her heart was torn with trouble and she begged the zemi for comfort, it had replied with soothing words. No one else had heard them, however, for she was alone at the time. But he believed his mother. And he was disappointed that the zemi would not now talk to him. Surely, being a god, the zemi should understand how deeply he was troubled. But it was being hardhearted and saying nothing.
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